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SSB&tte anfc (Sort §>txit*. 

A Series of Selections from Browning, Mrs. 
Browning, Longfellow, Tennyson, Whittier, 
and Wordsworth. Each volume, artistically 
printed, and bound in cloth of various colors, 
with backs decorated in gold on white cloth. 
i6mo, gilt top, $1.00; half levant, $3.00. 

LYRICS, IDYLS, AND ROMANCES. Robert 
Browning. 

ROMANCES, # LYRICS, AND SONNETS. 
Mrs. Browning. 

BALLADS, LYRICS, AND SONNETS. Long- 
fellow. 

INTERLUDES, LYRICS, AND IDYLS. Ten- 
nyson. 

•LEGENDS AND LYRICS. Whittier. 

PASTORALS, LYRICS, AND SONNETS. 
Wordsworth. 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

Boston and New York. 



LEGENDS AND LYRICS 

FROM THE POETIC l^ORKS OF JOHN 
GREENLEAF WHITTIER 



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3027 






BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 

(fflbe ntoer£i&e pre??, CamfcritJp 



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Copyright, 1850, 1856, 1857, i860, 1863, 1866, 1867, 

1870, 1875, 1878, 1881, 1883, 1884, 

1886, 1888, and 1890, 

By JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, TICKNOR 

& FIELDS, JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., and 

HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

All rights reserved. 



The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A, 
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company. 



THE TENT ON THE BEACH. 



And one there was, a dreamer horn, 

Who, with a mission to fulfil, 
Had left the Muses 9 haunts to turn 

The crank of an opinion-mill, 
Making his rustic reed of song 
A weapon in the war with wrong, 
Yoking his fancy to the breaking-plough 
That beam-deep turned the soil for truth to 
spring and grow, 

Too quiet seemed the man to ride 
The winged Hippogriff Reform ; 
Was his a voice from side to side 

To pierce the tumult of the storm ? 
A silent, shy, peace-loving man, 
He seemed no fiery partisan 
To hold his way against the public frown, 
The ban of Church and State, the fierce mob's 
hounding down. 

For while he wrought with strenuous will 
The work his hands had found to do, 

He heard the fitful music still 

Of winds that out of dream-land blew. 



iv The Tent on the Beach, 

The din about him could not drown 
What the strange voices whispered down ; 
Along his task-field weird processions swept, 
The visionary pomp of stately phantoms stepped. 

The common air was thick with dreams , — 

He told them to the toiling crowd ; 
Such music as the woods and streams 

Sang in bis ear he sang aloud ; 
In still j shut bays, on windy capes, 
He heard the call of beckoning shapes, 
And, as the gray old shadows prompted him, 
To homely moulds of rhyme he shaped their legends 
grim. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Angels of Buena Vista 7 

Hampton Beach 13 

On Receiving an Eagle's Quill from Lake Superior 17 

Tauler 21 

The Barefoot Boy 26 

The Kansas Emigrants 31 

Maud Muller 32 

The Last Walk in Autumn 39 

The Garrison of Cape Ann 52 

The Gift of Tritemius 60 

Skipper Ireson's Ride 63 

Telling the Bees 68 

The Swan Song of Parson Avery 71 

The Double-Headed Snake of Newbury .... 76 

Mabel Martin 81 

The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 98 

My Psalm 106 

Barbara Frietchie no 

Amy Wentworth 113 

Snow-Bound 122 

The Wreck of Rivermouth 152 

The Dead Ship of Harpswell 160 

Abraham Davenport 163 

Nauhaught, the Deacon 167 

In School-Days 174 

Sunset on the Bearcamp 176 

William Francis Bartlett 180 



6 Contents. 

The Henchman 182 

The Bay of Seven Islands 184 

Ichabod 194 

The Lost Occasion 196 

Storm on Lake Asquam . 200 

Birchbrook Mill 202 

The Bartholdi Statue 205 

At Last •••• 206 



LEGENDS AND LYRICS. 



THE ANGELS OF BUENA VISTA. 



WpgppPEAK and tell us, our Ximena, 
■^L^'^ looking northward far away, 
§ja|l||§jj O'er the camp of the invaders, 

o'er the Mexican array, 
Who is losing ? who is winning ? are they 

far or come they near ? 
Look abroad, and tell us, sister, whither 

rolls the storm we hear. 



"Down the hills of Angostura still the 

storm of battle rolls ; 
Blood is flowing, men are dying; God 

have mercy on their souls ! " 
Who is losing ? who is winning ? " Over 

hill and over plain, 
I see but smoke of cannon clouding 

through the mountain rain." 



8 The Angels of Buena Vista 

Holy Mother ! keep our brothers ! Look, 

Ximena, look once more. 
" Still I see the fearful whirlwind rolling 

darkly as before, 
Bearing on, in strange confusion, friend 

and foeman, foot and horse, 
Like some wild and troubled torrent 

sweeping down its mountain 

course." 

Look forth once more, Ximena ! " Ah ! 

the smoke has rolled away ; 
And I see the Northern rifles gleaming 

down the ranks of gray. 
Hark ! that sudden blast of bugles ! there 

the troop of Minon wheels ; 
There the Northern horses thunder, with 

the cannon at their heels. 

"Jesu, pity! how it thickens! now re- 
treat and now advance ! 

Right against the blazing cannon shivers 
Puebla's charging lance ! 

Down they go, the brave young riders ; 
horse and foot together fall \ 

Like a ploughshare in the fallow, through 
them ploughs the Northern ball." 



TJje Angels of Buena Vista 9 

Nearer came the storm and nearer, rolling 

fast and frightful on ! 
Speak, Ximena, speak and tell us, who 

has lost, and who has won ? 
" Alas ! alas ! I know not ; friend and foe 

together fall, 
O'er the dying rush the living : pray, my 

sisters, for them all ! 

''Lo! the wind the smoke is lifting. 

Blessed Mother, save my brain ! 
I can see the wounded crawling slowly 

out from heaps of slain. 
Now they stagger, blind and bleeding; 

now they fall, and strive to rise ; 
Hasten, sisters, haste and save them, lest 

they die before our eyes ! 

u my heart's love 1 O my dear one ! 

lay thy poor head on my knee ; 
Dost thou know the lips that kiss thee ? 

Canst thou hear me ? canst thou 

see ? 
O my husband, brave and gentle ! O my 

Bernal, look once more 
On the blessed cross before thee ! Mercy I 

mercy ! all is o'er ! " 



io The Angels of Buena Vista 

Dry thy tears, my poor Ximena ; lay thy 
dear one down to rest ; 

Let his hands be meekly folded, lay the 
cross upon his breast ; 

Let his dirge be sung hereafter, and his 
funeral masses said ; 

To-day, thou poor bereaved one, the liv- 
ing ask thy aid. 

Close beside her, faintly moaning, fair and 
young, a soldier lay, 

Torn with shot and pierced with lances, 
bleeding slow his life away ; 

But, as tenderly before him the lorn Xi- 
mena knelt, 

She saw the Northern eagle shining on his 
pistol-belt. 

With a stifled cry of horror straight she 

turned away her head ; 
With a sad and bitter feeling looked she 

back upon her dead ; 
But she heard the youth's low moaning, 

and his struggling breath of pain, 
And she raised the cooling water to his 

parching lips again. 



The Angels of Buena Vista 1 1 

Whispered low the dying soldier, pressed 
her hand and faintly smiled ; 

Was that pitying face his mother's ? did 
she watch beside her child ? 

All his stranger words with meaning her 
woman's heart supplied ; 

With her kiss upon his forehead, " Mo- 
ther ! " murmured he, and died ! 

" A bitter curse upon them, poor boy, who 
led thee forth, 

From some gentle, sad-eyed mother, weep- 
ing, lonely, in the North ! " 

Spake the mournful Mexic woman, as she 
laid him with her dead, 

And turned to soothe the living, and bind 
the w r ounds which bled. 

Look forth once more, Ximena ! " Like 
a cloud before the wind 

Roils the battle down the mountains, leav- 
ing blood and death behind ; 

Ah ! they plead in vain for mercy ; in the 
dust the wounded strive ; 

Hide your faces, holy angels ! O thou 
Christ of God, forgive ! " 



12 The Angels of Buena Vista 

Sink, O Night, among thy mountains ! let 

the cool, gray shadows fall ; 
Dying brothers, fighting demons, drop thy 

curtain over all ! 
Through the thickening winter twilight, 

wide apart the battle rolled, 
In its sheath the sabre rested, and the 

cannon's lips grew cold. 

But the noble Mexic women still their 

holy task pursued, 
Through that long, dark night of sorrow, 

worn and faint and lacking food. 
Over weak and suffering brothers, with a 

tender care they hung, 
And the dying foeman blessed them in a 

strange and Northern tongue. 

Not wholly lost, O Father ! is this evil 

world of ours ; 
Upward, through its blood and ashes, 

spring afresh the Eden flowers ; 
From its smoking hell of battle, Love and 

Pity send their prayer, 
And still thy white-winged angels hover 

dimly in our air ! 




Hampton Beach 13 



HAMPTON BEACH. 

HE sunlight glitters keen and 
bright, 

Where miles away, 
Lies stretching to my dazzled sight 
A luminous belt, a misty light, 
Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of 
sandy gray. 

The tremulous shadow of the Sea ! 

Against its ground 
Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree, 
Still as a picture, clear and free, 
With varying outline mark the coast for 
miles around. 

On — on — we tread with loose-flung 
rein 
Our seaward way, 
Through dark-green fields and blossom- 
ing gram, 
Where the wild brier -rose skirts the 
lane, 
And bends above our heads the flowering 
locust spray. 



14 Hampton Beach 

Ha ! like a kind hand on my brow 

Comes this fresh breeze, 
Cooling its dull and feverish glow, 
While through my being seems to flow 
The breath of a new life, the healing of 
the seas ! 

Now rest we, where this grassy mound 

His feet hath set 
In the great waters, which have bound 
His granite ankles greenly round 
With long and tangled moss, and weeds 
with cool spray wet. 

Good-by to Pain and Care ! I take 

Mine ease to-day : 
Here where these sunny waters break, 
And ripples this keen breeze, I shake 
All burdens from the heart, all weary 
thoughts away. 

I draw a freer breath, I seem 

Like all I see — 
Waves in the sun, the white -winged 

gleam 
Of sea-birds in the slanting beam, 
And far-off sails which flit before the 
south-wind free. 



Hampton Beach 15 

So when Time's veil shall fall asunder, 

The soul may know 
No fearful change, nor sudden wonder, 
Nor sink the weight of mystery under, 
But with the upward rise, and with the 
vastness grow. 

And all we shrink from now may seem 

No new revealing • 
Familiar as our childhood's stream, 
Or pleasant memory of a dream 
The loved and cherished Past upon the 
new life stealing. 

Serene and mild the untried light 

May have its dawning ; 
And, as in summer's northern night 
The evening and the dawn unite, 
The sunset hues of Time blend with the 
soul's new morning. 

I sit alone ; in foam and spray 

Wave after wave 
Breaks on the rocks which, stern and 

gray, 
Shoulder the broken tide away, 
Or murmurs hoarse and strong through 
mossy cleft and cave. 



16 Hampton Beach 

What heed I of the dusty land 

And noisy town ? 
I see the mighty deep expand 
From its white line of glimmering sand 
To where the blue of heaven on bluer 
waves shuts down ! 

In listless quietude of mind, 

I yield to all 
The change of cloud and wave and 

wind, 
And passive on the flood reclined, 
I wander with the waves, and with them 
rise and fall. 

But look, thou dreamer ! wave and 
shore 
In shadow lie ; 
The night-wind warns me back once 

more 
To where, my native hill-tops o'er, 
Eends like an arch of fire the glowing 
sunset sky. 

So then, beach, bluff, and wave, fare- 
well ! 
I bear with me 



On Receiving an Eagles Quill ij 

No token stone nor glittering shell, 
But long and oft shall Memory tell 
Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by 
the Sea. 



x 



ON RECEIVING AN EAGLE'S QUILL FROM 
LAKE SUPERIOR. 

LL day the darkness and the cold 
Upon my heart have lain, 
Like shadows on the winter sky, 
Like frost upon the pane ; 

But now my torpid fancy wakes, 

And, on thy Eagle's plume, 
Rides forth, like Sindbad on his bird, 

Or witch upon her broom ! 

Below me roar the rocking pines, 

Before me spreads the lake 
Whose long and solemn-sounding waves 

Against the sunset break. 




1 8 On Receiving an Eagle s Quill 

I hear the wild Rice-Eater thresh 

The grain he has not sown ; 
I see, with flashing scythe of fire, 

The prairie harvest mown ! 

I hear the far-off voyager's horn ; 

I see the Yankee's trail, — 
His foot on every mountain-pass, 

On every stream his sail 

By forest, lake, and waterfall, 

I see his pedler show ; 
The mighty mingling with the mean, 

The lofty with the low. 

He 's whittling by St. Mary's Falls, 

Upon his loaded wain ; 
He 's measuring o'er the Pictured Rocks, 

With eager eyes of gain. 

I hear the mattock in the mine, 

The axe-stroke in the dell, 
The clamor from the Indian lodge, 

The Jesuit chapel bell ! 

I see the swarthy trappers come 
From Mississippi's springs ; 



On Receiving an Eagle's Quill 19 

And war-chiefs with their painted brow r s, 
And crests of eagle wings. 

Behind the scared squaw's birch canoe, 
The steamer smokes and raves ; 

And city lots are staked for sale 
Above old Indian graves. 

I hear the tread of pioneers 

Of nations yet to be ; 
The first low wash of waves, where soon 

Shall roll a human sea. 

The rudiments of empire here 

Are plastic yet and warm ; 
The chaos of a mighty world 

Is rounding into form ! 

Each rude and jostling fragment soon 

Its fitting place shall find, — 
The raw material of a State, 

Its muscle and its mind ! 

And, westering still, the star which leads 

The New World in its train 
Has tipped with fire the icy spears 

Of many a mountain chain. 



20 On Receiving an Eagle's Quill 

The snowy cones of Oregon 

Are kindling on its way ; 
And California's golden sands 

Gleam brighter in its ray ! 

Then blessings on thy eagle quill, 

As, wandering far and wide, 
I thank thee for this twilight dream 

And Fancy's airy ride ! 

Yet, welcomer than regal plumes, 
Which Western trappers find, 

Thy free and pleasant thoughts, chance 
sown, 
Like feathers on the wind. 

Thy symbol be the mountain-bird, 
Whose glistening quill I hold ; 

Thy home the ample air of hope, 
And memory's sunset gold ! 

In thee, let joy with duty join, 
And strength unite with love, 

The eagle's pinions folding round 
The warm heart of the dove ! 



Tattler 21 

So, when in darkness sleeps the vale 
Where still the blind bird clings, 

The sunshine of the upper sky- 
Shall glitter on thy wings ! 




TAULER. 

AULER, the preacher, walked, 
one autumn day, 
Without the walls of Strasburg, 
by the Rhine, 
Pondering the solemn Miracle of Life ; 
As one who, wandering in a starless night, 
Feels momently the jar of unseen waves, 
And hears the thunder of an unknown 

sea, 
Breaking along an unimagined shore. 

And as he walked he prayed. Even 

the same 
Old prayer with which, for half a score of 

years, 
Morning, and noon, and evening, lip and 

heart 



22 Tattler 

Had groaned : " Have pity upon me, 

Lord! 
Thou seest, while teaching others, I am 

blind. 
Send me a man who can direct my steps ! " 

Then, as he mused, he heard along his 

path 
A sound as of an old man's staff among 
The dry, dead linden-leaves ; and, looking 

up, 
He saw a stranger, weak, and poor, and 

old. 

"Peace be unto thee, father! " Tauler 

said, 
" God give thee a good day ! " The old 

man raised 
Slowly his calm blue eyes. "I thank 

thee, son ; 
But all my days are good, and none are 

ill." 

Wondering thereat, the preacher spake 
again, 

"God give thee happy life." The old 

man smiled, 
" I never am unhappy." 



Tauter 23 

Tauler laid 
His hand upon the stranger's coarse gray 

sleeve : 
"Tell me, O father, what thy strange 

words mean. 
Surely man's days are evil, and his life 
Sad as the grave it leads to." " Nay, my 

son, 
Our times are in God's hands, and all our 

days 
Are as our needs ; for shadow as for sun, 
For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike 
Our thanks are due, since that is best 

which is ; 
And that which is not, sharing not His life, 
Is evil only as devoid of good. 
And for the happiness of which I spake, 
I find it in submission to His will, 
And calm trust in the holy Trinity 
Of Knowledge, Goodness, and Almighty 

Power." 

Silently wondering, for a little space, 
Stood the great preacher ; then he spake 

as one 
Who, suddenly grappling with a haunting 
thought 



2.4 Tattler 

Which long has followed, whispering 

through the dark 
Strange terrors, drags it, shrieking, into 

light: 
" What if God's will consign thee hence 

to Hell ? " 

" Then," said the stranger, cheerily, 

"be it so. 
What Hell may be I know not ; this I 

know, — 
I cannot lose the presence of the Lord. 
One arm, Humility, takes hold upon 
His dear Humanity ; the other, Love, 
Clasps his Divinity. So where I go 
He goes \ and better fire-walled Hell with 

Him 
Than golden-gated Paradise without." 

Tears sprang in Tauler's eyes. A sud- 
den light, 

Like the first ray w r hich fell on chaos, 
clove 

Apart the shadow wherein he had walked 

Darkly at neon. And, as the strange old 
man 

Went his slow r way, until his silver hair 



Tauter 25 

Set like the white moon where the hills of 

vine 
Slope to the Rhine, he bowed his head 

and said : 
" My prayer is answered. God hath sent 

the man 
Long sought, to teach me, by his simple 

trust, 
Wisdom the weary schoolmen never 

knew." 

So, entering with a changed and cheer- 
ful step 
The city gates, he saw, far dow T n the street, 
A mighty shadow break the light of noon, 
Which tracing backward till its airy lines 
Hardened to stony plinths, he raised his 

eyes 
O'er broad fagade and lofty pediment, 
O'er architrave and frieze and sainted 

niche, 
Up the stone lace-work chiselled by the 

wise 
Erwin of Steinbach, dizzily up to where 
In the noon-brightness the great Min- 
ster's tower, 
Jewelled with sunbeams on its mural 
crown, 



26 The Barefoot Boy 

Rose like a visible prayer. " Behold ! " 

he said, 
" The stranger's faith made plain before 

mine eyes. 
As yonder tower outstretches to the earth 
The dark triangle of its shade alone 
When the clear day is shining on its top, 
So, darkness in the pathway of Man's life 
Is but the shadow of God's providence, 
By the great Sun of Wisdom cast thereon ; 
And what is dark below is light in 

Heaven." 



THE BAREFOOT BOY 



^pflLESSINGS on thee, little man, 
™k Barefoot boy, with cheek of tan ! 
r#| With thy turned-up pantaloons, 
And thy merry w T histled tunes ; 
With thy red lip, redder still 
Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 
With the sunshine on thy face, 
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace ; 



The Barefoot Boy 2? 

From my heart I give thee joy, — 
I was once a barefoot boy ! 
Prince thou art, — the grown-up man 
Only is republican. 
Let the million-dollared ride ! 
Barefoot, trudging at his side, 
Thou hast more than he can buy 
In the reach of ear and eye, — 
Outward sunshine, inward joy: 
Blessings on thee, barefoot boy I 

Oh, for boyhood's painless play, 
Sleep that wakes in laughing day, 
Health that mocks the doctor's rules, 
Knowledge never learned of schools, 
Of the wild bee's morning chase, 
Of the wild-flower's time and place, 
Flight of fowl and habitude 
Of the tenants of the wood ; 
How the tortoise bears his shell, 
How the woodchuck digs his cell, 
And the ground-mole sinks his well ; 
How the robin feeds her young, 
How the oriole's nest is hung ; 
Where the whitest lilies blow, 
Where the freshest berries grow, 
Where the ground-nut trails its vine, 



25 The Barefoot Boy 

Where the wood-grape's clusters shine ; 

Of the black wasp's cunning way, 

Mason of his walls of clay, 

And the architectural plans 

Of gray hornet artisans ! 

For, eschewing books and tasks, 

Nature answers all he asks ; 

Hand in hand with her he walks, 

Face to face with her he talks, 

Part and parcel of her joy, — 

Blessings on the barefoot boy ! 

Oh, for boyhood's time of June, 
Crowding years in one brief moon, 
When all things I heard or saw, 
Me, their master, waited for. 
I was rich in flowers and trees, 
Humming-birds and honey-bees ; 
For my sport the squirrel played, 
Plied the snouted mole his spade ; 
For my taste the blackberry cone 
Purpled over hedge and stone ; 
Laughed the brook for my delight 
Through the day and through the night, 
Whispering at the garden wall, 
Talked w r ith me from fall to fall ; 
Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, 



The Barefoot Boy 2g 

Mine the walnut slopes beyond, 
Mine, on bending orchard trees. 
Apples of Hesperides ! 
Still as my horizon grew, 
Larger grew my riches too ; 
All the world I saw or knew 
Seemed a complex Chinese toy, 
Fashioned for a barefoot boy ! 

Oh, for festal dainties spread, 
Like my bowl of milk and bread ; 
Pewter spoon and bowl of wood, 
On the door-stone, gray and rude, 
O'er me, like a regal tent, 
Cloudy-ribbed, the sunset bent, 
Purple-curtained, fringed with gold, 
Looped in many a wind-swung fold ; 
While for music came the play 
Of the pied frogs orchestra ; 
And, to light the noisy choir, 
Lit the fly his lamp of fire. 
I was monarch : pomp and joy 
Waited on the barefoot boy ! 

Cheerily, then, mv little man, 
Live and laugh, as boyhood can ! 
Though the flinty slopes be hard, 



$o The Barefoot Boy 

Stubble-speared the new-mown sward, 
Every morn shall lead thee through 
Fresh baptisms of the dew ; 
Every evening from thy feet 
Shall the cool wind kiss the heat : 
All too soon these feet must hide 
In the prison cells of pride, 
Lose the freedom of the sod, 
Like a colt's for work be shod, 
Made to tread the mills of toil, 
Up and down in ceaseless moil : 
Happy if their track be found 
Never on forbidden ground ; 
Happy if they sink not in 
Quick and treacherous sands of sin. 
Ah ! that thou couldst know thy joy, 
Ere it passes, barefoot boy I 




The Kansas Emigrants 51 

THE KANSAS EMIGRANTS. 

E cross the prairie as of old 

The pilgrims crossed the sea, 
To make the West, as they the 
East, 
The homestead of the free J 

We go to rear a wall of men 
On Freedom's southern line, 

And plant beside the cotton-tree 
The rugged Northern pine ! 

We 're flowing from our native hills 

As our free rivers flow ; 
The blessing of our Mother-land 

Is on us as we go. 

We go to plant her common schools 

On distant prairie swells, 
And give the Sabbaths of the wild 

The music of her bells. 

Upbearing, like the Ark of old, 

The Bible in our van, 
We go to test the truth of God 

Against the fraud of man. 



$2 Maud Mullet 

No pause, nor rest, save where the 
streams 

That feed the Kansas run, 
Save where our Pilgrim gonfalon 

Shall flout the setting sun ! 

We '11 tread the prairie as of old 

Our fathers sailed the sea, 
And make the West, as they the East, 

The homestead of the free ! 




MAUD MULLER. 

AUD MULLER on a summer's 
day 
Raked the meadow sweet with 
hay. 



Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 
Of simple beauty and rustic health, 

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee 
The mock-bird echoed from his tree. 



Maud Mailer 33 

But when she glanced to the far-off town, 
White from its hill-slope looking down, 

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest 
And a nameless longing filled her 
breast, — 

A wish, that she hardly dared to own, 
For something better than she had known. 

The Judge rode slowly down the lane, 
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane. 

He drew his bridle in the shade 

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid, 

And asked a draught from the spring that 

flowed 
Through the meadow across the road. 

She stooped where the cool spring bub- 
bled up, 
And filled for him her small tin cup, 

And blushed as she gave it, looking down 
On her feet so bare, and her tattered 
gown. 



34 Maud Mailer 

" Thanks ! " said the Judge ; " a sweeter 

draught 
From a fairer hand was never quaffed." 

He spoke of the grass and flowers and 

trees, 
Of the singing birds and the humming 

bees ; 

Then talked of the haying, and wondered 

whether 
The cloud in the west would bring foul 

weather. 

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, 
And her graceful ankles bare and brown ; 

And listened, while a pleased surprise 
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes. 

At last, like one who for delay 
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away. 

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah 

me ! 
That I the Judge's bride might be ! 



Maud Midler 35 

u He would dress me up in silks so fine, 
And praise and toast me at his wine. 

" My father should wear a broadcloth coat ; 
My brother should sail a painted boat. 

" I 'd dress my mother so grand and gay, 
And the baby should have a new toy each 
day. 

" And I 'd feed the hungry and clothe the 

poor, 
And all should bless me who left our 

door." 

The Judge looked back as he climbed the 

hill, 
And saw Maud Mullet standing still. 

11 A form more fair, a face more sweet, 
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet. 

" And her modest answer and graceful air 
Show her wise and good as she is fair. 

" Would she were mine, and I to-day, 
Like her, a harvester of hay ; 



jj6 Maud Muller 

" No doubtful balance of rights and 

wrongs, 
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues, 

" But low of cattle and song of birds, 
And health and quiet and loving words." 

But he thought of his sisters, proud and 

cold, 
And his mother, vain of her rank and 

gold. 

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, 
And Maud was left in the field alone. 

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, 
When he hummed in court an old love- 
tune ; 

And the young girl mused beside the well 
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell. 

He wedded a wife of richest dower, 
Who lived for fashion, as he for power. 

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow, 
He watched a picture come and go ; 



Maud Muller $y 

And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes 
Looked out in their innocent surprise. 

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red, 
He longed for the wayside well instead ; 

And closed his eyes on his garnished 

rooms 
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms. 

And the proud man sighed, with a secret 

pain, 
"Ah, that I were free again ! 

" Free as when I rode that day, 

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay." 

She wedded a man unlearned and poor, 
And many children played round her door. 

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain, 
Left their traces on heart and brain. 

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot 
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot, 

And she heard the little spring brook fall 
Over the roadside, through the wall, 



)8 Mated Muller 

In the shade of the apple-tree again 
She saw a rider draw his rein. 

And, gazing down with timid grace, 
She felt his pleased eyes read her face. 

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls 
Stretched away into stately halls ; 

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned, 
The tallow candle an astral burned, 

And for him who sat by the chimney lug, 
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and 
mug, 

A manly form at her side she saw, 
And joy was duty and love was law. 

Then she took up her burden of life again, 
Saying only, " It might have been." 

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge, 

For rich repiner and household drudge ! 

God pity them both ! and pity us all, 
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall. 



The Last Walk in Autumn 39 

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, 
The saddest are these : " It might have 
been ! " 

Ah, well ! for us all some sweet hope lies 
Deeply buried from human eyes ; 

And, in the hereafter, angels may 
Roll the stone from its grave away ! 




THE LAST WALK IN AUTUMN. 
I. 

'ER the bare woods, whose out- 
stretched hands 
Plead with the leaden heavens 
in vain, 
I see, beyond the valley lands, 

The sea's long level dim with rain. 
Around me all things, stark and dumb, 
Seem praying for the snows to come, 
And, for the summer bloom and greenness 

gone, 
With winter's sunset hVhts and dazzling 
morn atone. 



40 The Last Walk in Autumn 

ii. 
Along the river's summer walk, 

The withered tufts of asters nod ; 
And trembles on its arid stalk 

The hoar plume of the golden-rod. 
And on a ground of sombre fir, 
And azure-studded juniper, 
The silver birch its buds of purple shows, 
And scarlet berries tell where bloomed 
the sweet wild-rose ! 

in. 
With mingled sound of horns and bells, 
A far-heard clang, the wild geese fly, 
Storm-sent, from Arctic moors and fells, 
Like a great arrow through the sky, 
Two dusky lines converged in one, 
Chasing the southward-flying sun ; 
While the brave snow-bird and the hardy 

jay 
Call to them from the pines, as if to bid 
them stay. 

IV. 

I passed this way a year ago : 

The wind blew south; the noon of 

day 



The Last Walk in Autumn 41 

Was warm as June's; and save that 
snow 
Flecked the low mountains far away, 
And that the vernal-seeming breeze 
Mocked faded grass and leafless trees, 
I might have dreamed of summer as I lay, 
Watching the fallen leaves with the soft 
wind at play. 

v. 
Since then, the winter blasts have piled 

The white pagodas of the snow 
On these rough slopes, and, strong and 
wild, 
Yon river, in its overflow 
Of spring-time rain and sun, set free, 
Crashed with its ices to the sea ; 
And over these gray fields, then green and 

gold, 
The summer corn has waved, the thun- 
der's organ rolled. 

VI. 

Rich gift of God ! A year of time ! 

What pomp of rise and shut of day, 
What hues wherewith our Northern 
clime 



42 The Last Walk in Autumn 

Makes autumn's dropping woodlands 

gay, 

What airs outblown from ferny dells, 
And clover-bloom and sweetbrier smells ? 
What songs of brooks and birds, what 

fruits and flowers, 
Green woods and moonlit snows, have in 
its round been ours ! 

VII. 

I know not how, in other lands, 

The changing seasons come and go ; 
What splendors fall on Syrian sands, 

What purple lights on Alpine snow ! 
Nor how the pomp of sunrise waits 
On Venice at her watery gates ; 
A dream alone to me is Arno's vale, 
And the Alhambra's halls are but a trav- 
eller's tale. 

VIII. 

Yet, on life's current, he who drifts 
Is one with him who rows or sails \ 

And he who wanders widest lifts 
No more of beauty's jealous veils 

Than he who from his doorway sees 

The miracle of flowers and trees, 



The Last Walk in Autumn 43 

Feels the warm Orient in the noonday air, 
And from cloud minarets hears the sunset 
call to prayer ! 

IX. 

The eye may well be glad that looks 
Where Pharpar's fountains rise and 
fall; 
But he who sees his native brooks 

Laugh in the sun, has seen them all. 
The marble palaces of Ind 
Rise round him in the snow and wind ; 
From his lone sweetbrier Persian Hafiz 

smiles, 
And Rome's cathedral awe is in his wood- 
land aisles. 

x. 

And thus it is my fancy blends 

The near at hand and far and rare; 

And while the same horizon bends 

Above the silver-sprinkled hair 
Which flashed the light of morning skies 
On childhood's wonder-lifted eves, 
Within its round of sea and sky and field, 
Earth wheels with all her zones, the Kos- 
mos stands revealed. 



44 The Last Walk in Autumn 

XL 

And thus the sick man on his bed, 

The toiler to his task-work bound, 
Behold their prison-walls outspread, 

Their clipped horizon widen round ! 
While freedom-giving fancy waits, 
Like Peter's angel at the gates, 
The power is theirs to baffle care and pain, 
To bring the lost world back, and make it 
theirs again ! 

XII. 

What lack of goodly company, 

When masters of the ancient lyre 
Obey my call, and trace for me 

Their words of mingled tears and 
fire! 
I talk with Bacon, grave and wise, 
I read the world with Pascal's eyes ; 
And priest and sage, with solemn brows 

austere, 
And poets, garland-bound, the Lords of 
Thought, draw near. 

XIII. 

Methinks, O friend, I hear thee say, 
" In vain the human heart we mock • 



The Last Walk in Autumn 45 

Bring living guests who love the day, 

Not ghosts who fly at crow of cock ! 
The herbs we share with flesh and blood 
Are better than ambrosial food 
With laurelled shades." I grant it, noth- 
ing loath, 
But doubly blest is he who can partake of 
both. 

XIV. 

He who might Plato's banquet grace, 

Have I not seen before me sit, 
And watched his puritanic face, 

With more than Eastern wisdom lit ? 
Shrewd mystic ! who, upon the back 
Of his Poor Richard's Almanac, 
Writing the Sufi's song, the Gentoo's 

dream, 
Links Manu's age of thought to Fulton's 
age of steam ! 

xv. 

Here too, of answering love secure, 
Have I not welcomed to my hearth 

The gentle pilgrim troubadour, 

Whose songs have girdled half the 
earth : 



46 The Last Walk in Autumn 

Whose pages, like the magic mat 
Whereon the Eastern lover sat, 
Have borne me over Rhine-land's purple 

vines, 
And Nubia's tawny sands, and Phrygians 
mountain pines ! 

XVI. 

And he, who to the lettered wealth 

Of ages adds the lore unpriced, 
The wisdom and the moral health, 

The ethics of the school of Christ ; 
The statesman to his holy trust, 
As the Athenian archon, just, 
Struck down, exiled like him for truth 

alone, 
Has he not graced my home with beauty 
all his own ? 

XVII. 

What greetings smile, what farewells 
wave, 
What loved ones enter and depart I 
The good, the beautiful, the brave, 
The Heaven-lent treasures of the 
heart ! 
How conscious seems the frozen sod 



The Last Walk in Autumn 47 

And beechen slope whereon they trod ! 

The oak-leaves rustle, and the dry grass 
bends 

Beneath the shadowy feet of lost or ab- 
sent friends. 

XVIII. 

Then ask not why to these bleak hills 

I cling, as clings the tufted moss, 
To bear the winter's lingering chills, 

The mocking spring's perpetual loss. 
I dream of lands where summer smiles, 
And soft winds blow from spicy isles, 
But scarce would Ceylon's breath of flow- 
ers be sweet, 
Could I not feel thy soil, New England, 
at my feet ! 

XIX. 

At times I long for gentler skies, 

And bathe in dreams of softer air, 
But homesick tears would fill the eyes 

That saw the Cross without the Bear. 
The pine must whisper to the palm, 
The north-wind break the tropic calm ; 
And with the dreamy languor of the Line, 
The North's keen virtue blend, and 
strength to beauty join. 



48 The Last Walk in Autumn 

xx. 

Better to stem with heart and hand 
The roaring tide of life, than lie, 
Unmindful, on its flowery strand, 
Of God's occasions drifting by ! 
Better with naked nerve to bear 
The needles of this goading air, 
Than, in the lap of sensual ease, forego 
The godlike power to do, the godlike aim 
to know. 

XXI, 

Home of my heart ! to me more fair 
Than gay Versailles or Windsor's 
halls, 
The painted, shingly town-house where 
The freeman's vote for Freedom 
falls ! 
The simple roof where prayer is made, 
Than Gothic groin and colonnade ; 
The living temple of the heart of man, 
Than Rome's sky-mocking vault, or many- 
spired Milan ! 

XXII. 

More dear thy equal village schools, 
Where rich and poor the Bible read, 



The Last Walk in Autumn 49 

Than classic halls where Priestcraft 
rules, 
And Learning wears the chains of 
Creed ; 
Thy glad Thanksgiving, gathering in 
The scattered sheaves of home and kin, 
Than the mad license ushering Lenten 

pains, 
Or holidays of slaves who laugh and dance 
in chains, 

XXIII. 

And sweet homes nestle in these dales* 
And perch along these wooded swells ; 
And, blest beyond Arcadian vales, 

They hear the sound of Sabbath bells I 
Here dwells no perfect man sublime, 
Nor woman winged before her time, 
But with the faults and follies of the race ? 
Old home-bred virtues hold their not un- 
honored place. 

xxiv. 

Here manhood struggles for the sake 
Of mother, sister, daughter, wife, 

The graces and the loves which make 
The music of the march of life ; 



50 The Last Walk in Autumn 

And woman, in her daily round 
Of duty, walks on holy ground. 
No unpaid menial tills the soil, nor here 
Is the bad lesson learned at human rights 
to sneer, 

XXV, 

Then let the icy north-wind blow 

The trumpets of the coming storm, 
To arrowy sleet and blinding snow 
Yon slanting lines of rain trans- 
form. 
Young hearts shall hail the drifted cold, 
As gayly as I did of old ; 
And I, who watch them through the frosty 

pane, 
Unenvious, live in them my boyhood o'er 
again, 

XXVI. 

And I will trust that He who heeds 
The life that hides in mead and wold, 

Who hangs yon alder's crimson beads, 
And stains these mosses green and 
gold, 

Will still, as He hath done, incline 

His gracious care to me and mine ; 



The Last Walk in Autumn 5/ 

Grant what we ask aright, from wrong de- 
bar, 

And, as the earth grows dark, make 
brighter every star ! 

XXVII. 

I have not seen, I may not see, 

My hopes for man take form in 
fact, 
But God will give the victory 

In due time ; in that faith I act. 
And he who sees the future sure, 
The baffling present may endure, 
And bless, meanwhile, the unseen Hand 

that leads 
The heart's desires beyond the halting 
step of deeds. 

XXVIII. 

And thou, my song, I send thee forth, 
Where harsher songs of mine have 
flown ; 
Go, find a place at home and hearth 
Where'er thy singer's name is 
known ; 
Revive for him the kindly thought 
Of friends ; and they who love him not^ 



52 The Garrison of Cape Ann 

Touched by some strain of thine, per- 
chance may take 

The hand he proffers all, and thank him 
for thy sake. 



THE GARRISON OF CAPE ANN. 



ROM the hills of home forth look- 
ing far beneath the tent -like 
span 

Of the sky, I see the white gleam of the 
headland of Cape Ann. 
Well I know its coves and beaches to the 

ebb-tide glimmering down, 
And the white-walled hamlet children of 
its ancient fishing-town. 

Long has passed the summer morning, and 

its memory waxes old, 
When along yon breezy headlands with a 

pleasant friend I strolled. 
Ah ! the autumn sun is shining, and the 

ocean wind blows cool, 
And the golden - rod and aster bloom 

around thy grave, Rantoul ! 



The Garrison of Cape Ann 53 

With the memory of that morning by the 

summer sea I blend 
A wild and wondrous story, by the 

younger Mather penned, 
In that quaint Magnalia Christi, with all 

strange and marvellous things, 
Heaped up huge and undigested, like the 

chaos Ovid sings. 

Dear to me these far, faint glimpses of the 

dual life of old, 
Inward, grand with awe and reverence; 

outward, mean and coarse and 

cold ; 
Gleams of mystic beauty playing over dull 

and vulgar clay, 
Golden-threaded fancies weaving in a web 

of hodden gray. 

The great eventful Present hides the Past ; 

but through the din 
Of its loud life hints and echoes from the 

life behind steal in ; 
And the lore of home and fireside, and the 

legendary rhyme, 
Make the task of duty lighter w T hich the 

true man owes his time. 



54 The Garrison of Cape Ann 

So, with something of the feeling which 
the Covenanter knew, 

When with pious chisel wandering Scot- 
land's moorland graveyards 
through, 

From the graves of old traditions I part 
the blackberry-vines, 

Wipe the moss from off the headstones, 
and retouch the faded lines. 

Where the sea-waves back and forward, 

hoarse with rolling pebbles, ran, 
The garrison-house stood w 7 atching on the 

gray rocks of Cape Ann ; 
On its windy site uplifting gabled roof and 

palisade, 
And rough walls of unhewn timber with 

the moonlight overlaid. 

On his slow round walked the sentry, 

south and eastward looking forth 
O'er a rude and broken coast-line, white 

with breakers stretching north, — 
Wood and rock and gleaming sand-drift, 

jagged capes, with bush and tree, 
Leaning inland from the smiting of the 

wild and gusty sea. 



The Garrison of Cape Ann 55 

Before the deep-mouthed chimney, dimly 
lit by dying brands, 

Twenty soldiers sat and waited, with their 
muskets in their hands ; 

On the rough-hewn oaken table the veni- 
son haunch was shared, 

And the pewter tankard circled slowly 
round from beard to beard. 

Long they sat and talked together, — 

talked of wizards Satan-sold ; 
Of all ghostly sights and noises, — signs 

and wonders manifold ; 
Of the spectre-ship of Salem, with the 

dead men in her shrouds, 
Sailing sheer above the water, in the loom 

of morning clouds ; 

Of the marvellous valley hidden in the 

depths of Gloucester woods, 
Full of plants that love the summer, — ■ 

blooms of warmer latitudes ; 
Where the Arctic birch is braided by the 

tropic's flowery vines, 
And the white magnolia-blossoms star the 

twilight of the pines I 



56 The Garrison of Cape Ann 

But their voices sank yet lower, sank to 

husky tones of fear, 
As they spake of present tokens of the 

powers of evil near ; 
Of a spectral host, defying stroke of steel 

and aim of gun ; 
Never yet was ball to slay them in the 

mould of mortals run ! 

Thrice, with plumes and flowing scalp- 
locks, from the midnight wood they 
came, — 

Thrice around the block-house marching, 
met, unharmed, its volleyed flame ; 

Then, with mocking laugh and gesture, 
sunk in earth or lost in air, 

All the ghostly wonder vanished, and the 
moonlit sands lay bare. 

Midnight came ; from out the forest 

moved a dusky mass that soon 
Grew to warriors, plumed and painted, 

grimly marching in the moon. 
" Ghosts or witches," said the captain, 

" thus I foil the Evil One ! " 
And he rammed a silver button, from his 

doublet, down his gun. 



Vie Garrison of Cape Ann $y 

Once again the spectral horror moved the 

guarded wall about ; 
Once again the levelled muskets through 

the palisades flashed out, 
With that deadly aim the squirrel on his 

tree-top might not shun, 
Nor the beach-bird seaward flying with his 

slant wing to the sun. 

Like the idle rain of summer sped the 

harmless shower of lead. 
With a laugh of fierce derision, once again 

the phantoms fled ; 
Once again, without a shadow on the sands 

the moonlight lay, 
And the white smoke curling through it 

drifted slowly down the bay ! 

" God preserve us ! " said the captain ; 

" never mortal foes were there ; 
They have vanished with their leader 

Prince and Power of the air ! 
Lay aside your useless weapons; skill 

and prowess naught avail ; 
They who do the Devil's service wear 

their master's coat of mail ! " 



5<? The Garrison of Cape Ann 

So the night grew near to cock-crow, when 
again a warning call 

Roused the score of weary soldiers watch- 
ing round the dusky hall .- 

And they looked to flint and priming, and 
they longed for break of day ; 

But the captain closed his Bible : " Let us 
cease from man, and pray ! " 

To the men who went before us, all the 

unseen powers seemed near, 
And their steadfast strength of courage 

struck its roots in holy fear. 
Every hand forsook the musket, every 

head was bowed and bare, 
Every stout knee pressed the flag-stones, 

as the captain led in prayer. 

Ceased thereat the mystic marching of the 

spectres round the wall, 
But a sound abhorred, unearthly, smote 

the ears and hearts of all, — 
Howls of rage and shrieks of anguish! 

Never after mortal man 
Saw the ghostly leaguers marching round 

the block-house of Cape Ann, 



The Garrison of Cape Ann 59 

So to us who walk in summer through the 

cool and sea-blown town, 
From the childhood of its people comes 

the solemn legend down. 
Not in vain the ancient fiction, in whose 

moral lives the youth 
And the fitness and the freshness of an 

undecaying truth. 

Soon or late to all our dwellings come the 

spectres of the mind, 
Doubts and fears and dread forebodings, 

in the darkness undefined ; 
Round us throng the grim projections of 

the heart and of the brain, 
And our pride of strength is weakness, 

and the cunning hand is vain. 

In the dark we cry like children ; and no 
answer from on high 

Breaks the crystal spheres of silence, and 
no white wings downward fly ; 

But the heavenly help we pray for comes 
to faith, and not to sight, 

And our prayers themselves drive back- 
ward all the spirits of the night ! 




6o The Gift of Tritemitis 



THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS. 

RITEMIUS of Herbipolis, one 
day, 
While kneeling at the altar's foot 
to pray, 
Alone with God, as v/as his pious choice, 
Heard from without a miserable voice, 
A sound which seemed of all sad things 

to tell, 
As of a lost soul crying out of hell. 

Thereat the Abbot paused ; the chain 
whereby 

His thoughts went upward broken by that 
cry- 

And, looking from the casement, saw be- 
low 

A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow, 

And withered hands held up to him, w T ho 
cried 

For alms as one who might not be denied. 

She cried, " For the dear love of Him who 
gave 



The Gift of Tritemius 6r 

His life for ours, my child from bondage 

save, — 
My beautiful, brave first-born, chained 

with slaves 
In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit 

waves 
Lap the white walls of Tunis ! " — " What 

I can 
I give," Tritemius said, " my prayers," — 

" O man 
Of God ! " she cried, for grief had made 

her bold, 
" Mock me not thus ; I ask not prayers, 

but gold. 
Words will not serve me, alms alone 

suffice ; 
Even while I speak perchance my first- 
born dies," 

" Woman ! " Tritemius answered, " from 

our door 
None go unfed, hence are we always 

poor ; 
A single soldo is our only store. 
Thou hast our prayers ; — what can we 

give thee more ? " 



62 The Gift of Tritemius 

" Give me," she said, " the silver candle- 
sticks 

On either side of the great crucifix. 

God well may spare them on His errands 
sped, 

Or He can give you golden ones instead." 

Then spake Tritemius, il Even as thy word, 
Woman, so be it ! (Our most gracious 

Lord, 
Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice, 
Pardon me if a human soul I prize 
Above the gifts upon his altar piled !) 
Take what thou askest, and redeem thy 

child." 

But his hand trembled as the holy alms 
He placed within the beggar's eager 

palms ; 
And as she vanished down the linden 

shade, 
He bowed his head and for forgiveness 

prayed. 

So the day passed, and when the twilight 

came 
He woke to find the chapel all aflame, 



Shipper Iresons Ride 63 

And, dumb with grateful wonder, to be- 
hold 
Upon the altar candlesticks of gold ! 




SKIPPER IRESON'S RIDE. 

F all the rides since the birth of 

time, 
Told in story or sung in rhyme, — 
On Apuleius's Golden Ass, 
Or one-eyed Calendar's horse of brass, 
Witch astride of a human back, 
Islam's prophet on Al-Borak, — 
The strangest ride that ever was sped 
Was Ireson's out from Marblehead ! 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a 
cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Body of turkey, head of owl, 
Wings a-droop like a rained-on fowl, 



64 Skipper Iresons Ride 

Feathered and ruffled in every part, 
Skipper Ireson stood in the cart. 
Scores of women, old and young, 
Strong of muscle, and glib of tongue, 
Pushed and pulled up the rocky lane, 
Shouting and singing the shrill refrain : 

"Here's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd 
horrt, 

Torr'd an* futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

Wrinkled scolds with hands on hips, 
Girls in bloom of cheek and lips, 
Wild-eyed, free-limbed, such as chase 
Bacchus round some antique vase, 
Brief of skirt, with ankles bare, 
Loose of kerchief and loose of hair, 
With conch- shells blowing and fish-horns* 

twang, 
Over and over the Maenads sang : 

" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd 

horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 

Small pity for him ! — He sailed away 
From a leaking ship, in Chaleur Bay, — 



Skipper Ireson's Ride 65 

Sailed away from a sinking wreck, 
With his own townspeople on her deck ! 
" Lay by ! lay by ! " they called to him. 
Back he answered, " Sink or swim ! 
Brag of your catch of fish again ! " 
And off he sailed through the fog and 
rain ! 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a 
cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Fathoms deep in dark Chaleur 
That wreck shall lie forevermore* 
Mother and sister, wife and maid, 
Looked from the rocks of Marblehead 
Over the moaning and rainy sea, — 
Looked for the coming that might not be ! 
What did the winds and the sea-birds say 
Of the cruel captain who sailed away ? — * 
Old Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a 
cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Through the street, on either side, 
Up flew windows, doors swung wide ; 



66 Skipper Ireson's Ride 

Sharp-tongued spinsters, old wives gray, 
Treble lent the fish-horn's bray. 
Sea-worn grandsires, cripple-bound, 
Hulks of old sailors run aground, 
Shook head, and fist, and hat, and 

cane, 
And cracked with curses the hoarse re- 
frain : 
" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd 

horrt, 
Torr'd an' f utherr'd an' corr'd in a corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! 

Sweetly along the Salem road 

Bloom of orchard and lilac showed. 

Little the wicked skipper knew 

Of the fields so green and the sky so 

blue. 
Riding there in his sorry trim, 
Like an Indian idol glum and grim, 
Scarcely he seemed the sound to hear 
Of voices shouting, far and near : 

" Here 's Flud Oirson, fur his horrd 

horrt, 
Torr'd an' futherr'd an' corr'd in a 
corrt 
By the women o' Morble'ead ! " 



Skipper Ireson s Ride 67 

" Hear me, neighbors ! " at last he cried ? — 
" What to me is this noisy ride ? 
What is the shame that clothes the skin 
To the nameless horror that lives within ? 
Waking or sleeping, I see a wreck, 
And hear a cry from a reeling deck ! 
Hate me and curse me, — I only dread 
The hand of God and the face of the 
dead ! " 
Said old Floyd Ireson, for his hard 

heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a 
cart 
By the women of Marblehead ! 

Then the wife of the skipper lost at sea 
Said, " God has touched him ! why should 

we ? " 
Said an old wife mourning her only son, 
" Cut the rogue's tether and let him run ! " 
So with soft relentings and rude excuse, 
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose, 
And gave him a cloak to hide him in, 
And left him alone with his shame and sin. 
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart, 
Tarred and feathered and carried in a 
cart 
By the women of Marblehead I 




68 Telling the Bees 

TELLING THE BEES. 

ERE is the place ; right over the 
hill 

Runs the path I took ; 
You can see the gap in the old wall still, 
And the stepping-stones in the shallow 
brook. 

There is the house, with the gate red- 
barred 
And the poplars tall ; 
And the barn's brown length, and the cat- 
tle-yard, 
And the white horns tossing above the 
wall. 

There are the beehives ranged in the sun ; 

And down by the brink 
Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed- 
o'errun, 
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink. 

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes, 

Heavy and slow ; 
And the same rose blows, and the same 
sun glows, 
And the same brook sings of a year ago. 



Telling the Bees 69 

There 's the same sweet clover-smell in 
the breeze ; 
And the June sun warm 
Tangles his wings of fire in the trees, 
Setting, as then, over Fernside farm. 

I mind me how with a lover's care 

From my Sunday coat 
I brushed off the burrs, and smoothed my 
hair, 
And cooled at the brookside my brow 
and throat. 

Since we parted, a month had passed, — 

To love, a year ; 
Down through the beeches I looked at 
last 
On the little red gate and the well-sweep 
near. 

I can see it all now, — the slantwise rain 

Of light through the leaves, 
The sundown's blaze on her window-pane, 
The bloom of her roses under the eaves. 

Just the same as a month before, — 
The house and the trees, 



yo Telling the Bees 

The barn's brown gable, the vine by the 
door, — 
Nothing changed but the hives of 
bees. 



Before them, under the garden wall, 

Forward and back, 
Went drearily singing the chore-girl small, 
Draping each hive with a shred of black. 

Trembling I listened : the summer sun 

Had the chill of snow ; 
For I knew she was telling the bees of 
one 
Gone on the journey we all must go ! 

Then I said to myself, " My Mary weeps 

For the dead to-day : 
Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps 
The fret and the pain of his age away." 

But her dog whined low ; on the doorway 
sill, 
With his cane to his chin, 
The old man sat; and the chore -girl 
still 
Sung to the bees stealing out and in. 



The Swan Song of Parson Avery 7/ 

And the song she was singing ever 
since 
In my ear sounds on : — 
" Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence ! 
Mistress Mary is dead and gone 1 " 



* 



THE SWAN SONG OF PARSON AVERY. 

HEN the reaper's task was ended, 
and the summer wearing late, 
Parson Avery sailed from New- 
bury, with his wife and chil- 
dren eight, 
Dropping down the river-harbor in the 
shallop " Watch and Wait." 

Pleasantly lay the clearings in the mellow 

summer-morn, 
With the newly planted orchards dropping 

their fruits first-born, 
And the home-roofs like brown islands 

amid a sea of corn* 




J2 The Swan Song of Parson Avery 

Broad meadows reached out seaward the 

tided creeks between, 
And hills rolled wave-like inland, with 

oaks and walnuts green ; — 
A fairer home, a goodlier land, his eyes 

had never seen. 

Yet away sailed Parson Avery, away where 

duty led, 
And the voice of God seemed calling, to 

break the living bread 
To the souls of fishers starving on the 

rocks of Marblehead. 

All day they sailed : at nightfall the pleas- 
ant land-breeze died, 

The blackening sky, at midnight, its starry 
lights denied, 

And far and low the thunder of tempest 
prophesied ! 

Blotted out were all the coast-lines, gone 
were rock, and wood, and sand ; 

Grimly anxious stood the skipper with the 
rudder in his hand, 

And questioned of the darkness what was 
sea and what was land. 



The Swan Song of Parson Avery 73 

And the preacher heard his dear ones, 
nestled round him, weeping sore : 

" Never heed, my little children ! Christ 
is walking on before 

To the pleasant land of heaven, where the 
sea shall be no more." 

All at once the great cloud parted, like a 
curtain drawn aside, 

To let down the torch of lightning on the 
terror far and wide ; 

And the thunder and the whirlwind to- 
gether smote the tide. 

There was wailing in the shallop, woman's 

wail and man's despair, 
A crash of breaking timbers on the rocks 

so sharp and bare, 
And, through it all, the murmur of Father 

Avery's prayer. 

From his struggle in the darkness with the 
wild waves and the blast, 

On a rock, where every billow broke 
above him as it passed, 

Alone, of all his household, the man of 
God was cast 



74 The Swan Song of Par sent Avery 

There a comrade heard him praying, in 
the pause of wave and wind : 

" All my own have gone before me, and I 
linger just behind ; 

Not for life I ask, but only for the rest 
Thy ransomed find ! 

" In this night of death I challenge the 
promise of Thy word ! — 

Let me see the great salvation of which 
mine ears have heard ! — 

Let me pass from hence forgiven, through 
the grace of Christ, our Lord ! 

" In the baptism of these waters wash 
white my every sin, 

And let me follow up to Thee my house- 
hold and my kin ! 

Open the sea-gate of Thy heaven, and let 
me enter in ! " 

When the Christian sings his death-song, 
all the listening heavens draw near, 

And the angels, leaning over the walls of 
crystal, hear 

How the notes so faint and broken swell to 
music in God's ear. 



The Swan Song of Parson Avery 75 

The ear of God was open to His servant's 
last request \ 

As the strong wave swept him downward 
the sweet hymn upward pressed, 

And the soul of Father Avery went, sing- 
ing, to its rest. 

There was wailing on the mainland, from 
the rocks of -Marblehead \ 

In the stricken church of Newbury the 
notes of prayer were read ; 

And long, by board and hearthstone, the 
living mourned the dead. 

And still the fishers outbound, or scud- 
ding from the squall, 

With grave and reverent faces, the an- 
cient tale recall, 

When they see the white waves breaking 
on the Rock of Avery's Fall ! 



J6 The Double-Headed Snake 

THE DOUBLE-HEADED SNAKE OF NEW- 
BURY. 

" Concerning y e Amphisbsena, as soon as I received your 
commands, I made diligent inquiry : ... he assures me y* it 
had really two heads, one at each end ; two mouths, two stings 
or tongues. " — Rev. Christopher Tofpan to Cotton 
Mather. 



AR away in the twilight time 
Of every people, in every clime, 
jj gp^il Dragons and griffins and mon- 
sters dire, 
Born of water, and air, and fire, 
Or nursed, like the Python, in the mud 
And ooze of the old Deucalion flood, 
Crawl and wriggle and foam with rage, 
Through dusk tradition and ballad age* 
So from the childhood of Newbury town 
And its time of fable the tale comes down 
Of a terror which haunted bush and brake. 
The Amphisbasna, the Double Snake ! 

Thou who makest the tale thy mirth. 

Consider that strip of Christian earth 

On the desolate shore of a sailless sea, 

Full of terror and mystery, 

Half redeemed from the evil hold 

Of the wood so dreary, and dark, and old, 



The Doable-Headed Snake jy 

Which drank with its lips of leaves the dew 
When Time was young, and the world was 

new, 
And wove its shadows with sun and moon, 
Ere the stones of Cheops were squared 

and hewn. 
Think of the sea's dread monotone, 
Of the mournful wail from the pine-wood 

blown, 
Of the strange, vast splendors that lit the 

North, 
Of the troubled throes of the quaking 

earth, 
And the dismal tales the Indian told, 
Till the settler's heart at his hearth grew 

cold, 
And he shrank from the tawny wizard 

boasts, 
And the hovering shadows seemed full of 

ghosts, 
And above, below, and on every side, 
The fear of his creed seemed verified ; — - 
And think, if his lot were now thine own, 
To grope with terrors nor named nor 

known, 
How laxer muscle and weaker nerve 
And a feebler faith thy need might serve \ 



y8 The Double-Headed Snake 

And own to thyself the wonder more 
That the snake had two heads, and not a 
score ! 

Whether he lurked in the Oldtown fen 
Or the gray earth-flax of the Devil's 

Den, 
Or swam in the wooded Artichoke, 
Or coiled by the Northman's Written 

Rock, 
Nothing on record is left to show ; 
Only the fact that he lived, we know, 
And left the cast of a double head 
In the scaly mask which he yearly shed. 
For he carried a head where his tail should 

be, 
And the two, of course, could never agree, 
But wriggled about w T ith main and might, 
Now to the left and now to the right ; 
Pulling and twisting this way and that, 
Neither knew what the other was at. 

A snake with two heads, lurking so near! 
Judge of the wonder, guess at the fear ! 
Think what ancient gossips might say, 
Shaking their heads in their dreary way, 
Between the meetings on Sabbath-day ! 



Vie Double-Headed Snake 79 

How urchins, searching at day's decline 
The Common Pasture for sheep or kine, 
The terrible double-ganger heard 
In leafy rustle or whir of bird ! 
Think what a zest it gave to the sport, 
In berry-time, of the younger sort, 
As over pastures blackberry-twined, 
Reuben and Dorothy lagged behind, 
And closer and closer, for fear of harm, 
The maiden clung to her lover's arm ; 
And how the spark, who was forced to 

stay, 
By his sweetheart's fears, till the break of 

day, 
Thanked the snake for the fond delay ! 

Far and wide the tale was told, 

Like a snowball growing while it rolled. 

The nurse hushed with it the baby's 

cry; 
And it served, in the worthy minister's 

eye, 
To paint the primitive serpent by. 
Cotton Mather came galloping down 
All the way to Newbury town, 
With his eyes agog and his ears set wide, 
And his marvellous inkhorn at his side ; 



80 The Double-Headed Snake 

Stirring the while in the shallow pool 

Of his brains for the lore he learned at 

school, 
To garnish the story, with here a streak 
Of Latin, and there another of Greek : 
And the tales he heard and the notes he 

took, 
Behold ! are they not in his Wonder-Book ? 

Stories, like dragons, are hard to kill. 
If the snake does not, the tale runs still 
In Byfield Meadows, on Pipestave Hill. 
And still, whenever husband and wife 
Publish the shame of their daily strife, 
And, with mad cross-purpose, tug and 

strain 
At either end of the marriage-chain, 
The gossips say, with a knowing shake 
Of their gray heads, " Look at the Double 

Snake ! 
One in body and two in will, 
The Amphisbaena is living still ! " 



Mabel Martin 81 

MABEL MARTIN. 

A HARVEST IDYL. 
PROEM. 

g^Spgi CALL the old time back : I 
^r^fj bring my lay 



In tender memory of the sum- 
mer day 
When, where our native river lapsed away, 

We dreamed it over, while the thrushes 
made 

Songs of their own, and the great pine- 
trees laid 

On warm moonlights the masses of their 
shade. 

And she was with us, living o'er again 
Her life in ours, despite of years and 

pain, — 
The Autumn's brightness after latter rain, 

Beautiful in her holy peace as one 

Who stands, at evening, when the work is 

done, 
Glorified in the setting of the sun ! 



82 Mabel Martin 

Her memory makes our common land- 
scape seem 

Fairer than any of which painters dream ; 

Lights the brown hills and sings in every 
stream ; 

For she whose speech was always truth's 

pure gold 
Heard, not unpleased, its simple legends 

told, 
And loved with us the beautiful and old. 



I. THE RIVER VALLEY. 

Across the level tableland, 
A grassy, rarely trodden way, 
With thinnest skirt of birchen spray 

And stunted growth of cedar, leads 
To where you see the dull plain fall 
Sheer off, steep-slanted, ploughed by 
all 

The seasons' rainfalls. On its brink 
The over-leaning harebells swing, 
With roots half bare the pine-trees 
cling ; 



Mabel Martin 83 

And, through the shadow looking west, 
You see the wavering river flow 
Along a vale, that far below 

Holds to the sun, the sheltering hills 
And glimmering water-line between, 
Broad fields of corn and meadows green, 

And fruit-bent orchards grouped around 
The low brown roofs and painted eaves, 
And chimney-tops half hid in leaves. 

No warmer valley hides behind 

Yon wind -scourged sand-dunes, cold 

and bleak ; 
No fairer river comes to seek 

The wave-sung welcome of the sea, 
Or mark the northmost border line 
Of sun-loved growths of nut and vine. 

Here, ground-fast in their native fields, 
Untempted by the city's gain, 
The quiet farmer folk remain 

Who bear the pleasant name of Friends, 
And keep their fathers' gentle ways 
And simple speech of Bible days ; 



84 Mabel Martin 

In whose neat homesteads woman holds 
With modest ease her equal place, 
And w r ears upon her tranquil face 

The look of one who, merging not 
Her self-hood in another's will, 
Is love's and duty's handmaid still. 

Pass with me down the path that winds 
Through birches to the open land, 
Where, close upon the river strand, 

You mark a cellar, vine o'errun, 

Above whose wall of loosened stones 
The sumach lifts its reddening cones, 

And the black nightshade's berries shine, 
And broad, unsightly burdocks fold 
The household ruin, century-old. 

Here, in the dim colonial time 

Of sterner lives and gloomier faith, 
A woman lived, tradition saith, 

Who wrought her neighbors foul annoy, 
And witched and plagued the country- 
side, 
Till at the hangman's hand she died. 



Mabel Martin 85 

Sit with me while the westering day 
Falls slantwise down the quiet vale, 
And, haply ere you loitering sail, 

That rounds the upper headland, falls 
Below Deer Island's pines, or sees 
Behind it Hawkswood's belt of trees 

Rise black against the sinking sun, 
My idyl of its days of old, 
The valley's legend, shall be told. 



II. THE HUSKING. 

It was the pleasant harvest-time, 
When cellar-bins are closely stowed, 
And garrets bend beneath their load, 

And the old swallow-haunted barns, — 
Brown-gabled, long, and full of seams 
Through which the moted sunlight 
streams. 

And winds blow freshly in, to shake 
The red plumes of the roosted cocks, 
And the loose hay -mow's scented 
locks, — 



86 Mabel Martin 

Are filled with summer's ripened stores, 
Its odorous grass and barley sheaves, 
From their low scaffolds to their 
eaves, 

On Esek Harden's oaken floor, 

With many an autumn threshing worn, 
Lay the heaped ears of unhusked 
corn. 

And thither came young men and maids, 
Beneath a moon that, large and low, 
Lit that sweet eve of long ago. 

They took their places ; some by chance, 
And others by a merry voice 
Or sweet smile guided to their choice. 

How pleasantly the rising moon, 
Between the shadow of the mows, 
Looked on them through the great elm- 
boughs ! 

On sturdy boyhood, sun-embrowned, 
On girlhood with its solid curves 
Of healthful strength and painless 
nerves ! 



Mabel Martin 8j 

And jests went round, and laughs that 

made 
The house - dog answer with his 

howl, 
And kept astir the barn-yard fowl ; 

And quaint old songs their fathers 
sung 
In Derby dales and Yorkshire moors, 
Ere Norman William trod their shores \ 

And tales, whose merry license shook 
The fat sides of the Saxon thane, 
Forgetful of the hovering Dane, — - 

Rude plays to Celt and Cimbri known, 
The charms and riddles that beguiled 
On Oxus , banks the young world's 
child, — 

That primal picture-speech wherein 
Have youth and maid the story told ? 
So new in each, so dateless old, 

Recalling pastoral Ruth in her 

Who waited, blushing and demure, 
The red-ear's kiss of forfeiture. 



88 Mabel Martin 

III. THE WITCH'S DAUGHTER. 

But still the sweetest voice was mute 
That river-valley ever heard 
From lips of maid or throat of bird ; 

For Mabel Martin sat apart, 

And let the hay-mow's shadow fall 
Upon the loveliest face of all. 

She sat apart, as one forbid, 

Who knew that none would condescend 
To own the Witch-wife's child a friend. 

The seasons scarce had gone their round, 
Since curious thousands thronged to see 
Her mother at the gallows-tree ; 

And mocked the prison-palsied limbs 
That faltered on the fatal stairs, 
And wan lip trembling with its prayers ! 

Few questioned of the sorrowing child, 
Or, when they saw the mother die, 
Dreamed of the daughter's agony. 

They went up to their homes that day, 
As men and Christians justified : 
God willed it, and the wretch had died! 



Mabel Martin 89 

Dear God and Father of us all, 
Forgive our faith in cruel lies, — 
Forgive the blindness that denies ! 

Forgive Thy creature when he takes, 
For the all-perfect love Thou art, 
Some grim creation of his heart. 

Cast down our idols, overturn 
Our bloody altars ; let us see 
Thyself in Thy humanity ! 

Young Mabel from her mother's grave 
Crept to her desolate hearth-stone, 
And wrestled with her fate alone ; 

With love, and anger, and despair, 
The phantoms of disordered sense, 
The awful doubts of Providence ! 

Oh, dreary broke the winter days, 
And dreary fell the winter nights 
When, one by one, the neighboring lights 

Went out, and human sounds grew still, 
And all the phantom-peopled dark 
Closed round her hearth - fire's dying 
spark. 



go Mabel Martin 

And summer days were sad and long, 
And sad the uncompanioned eves, 
And sadder sunset-tinted leaves, 

And Indian Summer's airs of balm ; 
She scarcely felt the soft caress, 
The beauty died of loneliness ! 

The school-boys jeered her as they passed 
And, when she sought the house of 

prayer, 
Her mother's curse pursued her there. 

And still o'er many a neighboring door 
She saw the horseshoe's curved charm, 
To guard against her mother's harm : 

That mother, poor and sick and lame, 
Who daily, by the old arm-chair, 
Folded her withered hands in prayer ; — 

Who turned, in Salem's dreary jail, 
Her worn old Bible o'er and o'er, 
When her dim eyes could read no more ! 

Sore tried and pained, the poor girl kept 
Her faith, and trusted that her way, 
So dark, would somewhere meet the day. 



Mabel Martin gi 

And still her weary wheel went round 
Day after day, with no relief : 
Small leisure have the poor for grief. 



IV. THE CHAMPION. 

So in the shadow Mabel sits ; 

Untouched by mirth she sees and 

hears, 
Her smile is sadder than her tears. 

But cruel eyes have found her out, 
And cruel lips repeat her name, 
And taunt her with her mother's 
shame. 

She answered not with railing words, 
But drew her apron o'er her face, 
And, sobbing, glided from the place. 

And only pausing at the door, 

Her sad eyes met the troubled gaze 
Of one who, in her better days, 

Had been her warm and steady friend, 
Ere yet her mother's doom had made 
Even Esek Harden half afraid. 



$2 Mabel Martin 

He felt that mute appeal of tears, 
And, starting, with an angry frown, 
Hushed all the wicked murmurs down. 

" Good neighbors mine," he sternly said, 
"This passes harmless mirth or jest ; 
I brook no insult to my guest. 

" She is indeed her mother's child ; 
But God's sweet pity ministers 
Unto no whiter soul than hers. 

" Let Goody Martin rest in peace ; 
I never knew her harm a fly, 
And witch or not, God knows, — not I. 

" I know who swore her life away ; 
And as God lives, I 'd not condemn 
An Indian dog on word of them." 

The broadest lands in all the town, 
The skill to guide, the power to awe, 
Were Harden's ; and his word was law. 

None dared withstand him to his face, 
But one sly maiden spake aside : 
" The little witch is evil-eyed ! 



Mabel Martin 93 

" Her mother only killed a cow, 
Or witched a churn or dairy-pan ; 
But she, forsooth, must charm a man ! " 



V. IN THE SHADOW. 

Poor Mabel, homeward turning, passed 
The nameless terrors of the wood, 
And saw, as if a ghost pursued, 

Her shadow gliding in the moon ; 

The soft breath of the west -wind 

gave 
A chill as from her mother's grave. 

How dreary seemed the silent house ! 
Wide in the moonbeams' ghastly glare 
Its windows had a dead man's stare ! 

And, like a gaunt and spectral hand, 
The tremulous shadow of a birch 
Reached out and touched the door's low 
porch, 

As if to lift its latch ; hard by, 
A sudden warning call she heard, 
The night-cry of a boding bird. 



94 Mabel Martin 

She leaned against the door ; her face, 
So fair, so young, so full of pain, 
White in the moonlight's silver rain. 

The river, on its pebbled rim, 

Made music such as childhood knew; 
The door-yard tree was whispered 
through 

By voices such as childhood's ear 
Had heard in moonlights long ago ; 
And through the willow-boughs below 

She saw the rippled waters shine ; 
Beyond, in waves of shade and light, 
The hills rolled off into the night. 

She saw and heard, but over all 
A sense of some transforming spell, 
The shadow of her sick heart fell. 

And still across the wooded space 
The harvest lights of Harden shone, 
And song and jest and laugh went on. 

And he, so gentle, true, and strong, 
Of men the bravest and the best, 
Had he, too, scorned her with the rest ? 



Mabel Martin 95 

She strove to drown her sense of wrong, 
And, in her old and simple way, 
To teach her bitter heart to pray. 

Poor child ! the prayer, begun in faith, 
Grew to a low, despairing cry 
Of utter misery : " Let me die ! 

" Oh ! take me from the scornful eyes, 
And hide me where the cruel speech 
And mocking finger may not reach ! 

" I dare not breathe my mother's name : 
A daughter's right I dare not crave 
To weep above her unblest grave ! 

" Let me not live until my heart, 
With few to pity, and with none 
To love me, hardens into stone. 

" O God ! have mercy on Thy child, 
Whose faith in Thee grows weak and 

small, 
And take me ere I lose it all ! " 



A shadow on the moonlight fell, 

And murmuring wind and wave becai 
A voice whose burden was her name. 



g6 Mabel Martin 



VI. THE BETROTHAL. 

Had then God heard her? Had He 
sent 
His angel down ? In flesh and blood, 
Before her Esek Harden stood ! 

He laid his hand upon her arm : 

" Dear Mabel, this no more shall be ; 
Who scoffs at you must scoff at me. 

" You know rough Esek Harden well ; 
And if he seems no suitor gay, 
And if his hair is touched with gray, 

" The maiden grown shall never find 
His heart less warm than when she 

smiled, 
Upon his knees, a little child ! " 

Her tears of grief were tears of joy, 
As, folded in his strong embrace, 
She looked in Esek Harden's face. 

"O truest friend of all ! " she said, 

" God bless you for your kindly thought, 
And make me worthy of my lot ! " 



Mabel Martin 97 

He led her forth, and, blent in one, 
Beside their happy pathway ran 
The shadows of the maid and man. 

He led her through his dewy fields, 
To where the swinging lanterns 

glowed, 
And through the doors the huskers 

showed. 

" Good friends and neighbors ! " Esek 
said, 
" I 'm weary of this lonely life ; 
In Mabel see my chosen wife ! 

" She greets you kindly, one and all ; 
The past is past, and all offence 
Falls harmless from her innocence. 

" Henceforth she stands no more 
alone ; 
You know what Esek Harden is ; — - 
He brooks no wrong to him or his. 

" Now let the merriest tales be told, 
And let the sweetest songs be sung 
That ever made the old heart young ! 



98 The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 

" For now the lost has found a home ; 
And a lone hearth shall brighter burn, 
As all the household joys return ! " 

Oh, pleasantly the harvest-moon, 
Between the shadow of the mows, 
Looked on them through the great elm- 
boughs ! 

On Mabel's curls of golden hair, 
On Esek's shaggy strength it fell ; 
And the wind whispered, " It is well ! " 



¥ 



THE PROPHECY OF SAMUEL SEWALL. 

IP and down the village streets 
Strange are the forms my fancy 
meets, 
For the thoughts and things of to-day are 

hid, 
And through the veil of a closed lid 
The ancient worthies I see again : 
I hear the tap of the elder's cane, 




The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 99 

And his awful periwig I see, 
And the silver buckles of shoe and knee» 
Stately and slow, with thoughtful air, 
His black cap hiding his whitened hair, 
Walks the Judge of the great Assize, 
Samuel Sewall the good and wise. 
His face with lines of firmness wrought, 
He wears the look of a man unbought, 
Who swears to his hurt and changes not ; 
Yet, touched and softened nevertheless 
With the grace of Christian gentleness, 
The face that a child would climb to kiss! 
True and tender and brave and just, 
That man might honor and woman trust* 

Touching and sad, a tale is told, 
Like a penitent hymn of the Psalmist old, 
Of the fast which the good man lifelong 

kept 
With a haunting sorrow that never slept, 
As the circling year brought round the 

time 
Of an error that left the sting of crime, 
When he sat on the bench of the witch- 
craft courts, 
With the laws of Moses and Hale's Re- 
ports, 



wo The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 

And spake, in the name of both, the word 
That gave the witch's neck to the cord. 
And piled the oaken planks that pressed 
The feeble life from the warlock's breast ! 
All the day long, from dawn to dawn, 
His door w r as bolted, his curtain drawn ; 
No foot on his silent threshold trod, 
No e) r e looked on him save that of God, 
As he baffled the ghosts of the dead with 

charms 
Of penitent tears, and prayers, and psalms, 
And, with precious proofs from the sacred 

word 
Of the boundless pity and love of the 

Lord, 
His faith confirmed and his trust renewed 
That the sin of his ignorance, sorely rued, 
Might be washed away in the mingled 

flood 
Of his human sorrow and Christ's dear 

blood ! 

Green forever the memory be 
Of the Judge of the old Theocracy, 
Whom even his errors glorified, 
Like a far-seen, sunlit mountain-side 
By the cloudy shadows which o'er it glide ! 



The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 101 

Honor and praise to the Puritan 
Who the halting step of his age outran, 
And, seeing the infinite worth of man 
In the priceless gift the Father gave, 
In the infinite love that stooped to save, 
Dared not brand his brother a slave ! 
"Who doth such wrong," he was wont to 

say, 
In his own quaint, picture-loving way, 
" Flings up to Heaven a hand-grenade 
Which God shall cast down upon his 

head ! " 

Widely as heaven and hell, contrast 
That brave old jurist of the past 
And the cunning trickster and knave of 

courts 
Who the holy features of Truth distorts, — 
Ruling as right the will of the strong, 
Poverty, crime, and weakness wrong ; 
Wide-eared to power, to the wronged and 

weak 
Deaf as Egypt's gods of leek ; 
Scoffing aside at party's nod 
Order of nature and law of God ; 
For whose dabbled ermine respect were 

waste, 



to2 The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 

Reverence folly, and awe misplaced ; 
Justice of whom ? t were vain to seek 
As from Koordish robber or Syrian Sheik ! 
Oh, leave the wretch to his bribes and 

sins ; 
Let him rot in the web of lies he spins ! 
To the saintly soul of the early day, 
To the Christian judge, let us turn and say : 
" Praise and thanks for an honest man ! — 
Glory to God for the Puritan 1 " 

I see, far southward, this quiet day, 
The hills of Newbury rolling away, 
With the many tints of the season gay, 
Dreamily blending in autumn mist 
Crimson, and gold, and amethyst. 
Long and low, with dwarf trees crowned, 
Plum Island lies, like a whale aground, 
A stone's toss over the narrow sound. 
Inland, as far as the eye can go, 
The hills curve round like a bended bow ; 
A silver arrow from out them sprung, 
I see the shine of the Quasycung ; 
And, round and round, over valley and 

hill, 
Old roads winding, as old roads will, 
Here to a ferry, and there to a mill ; 



TJie Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 103 

And glimpses of chimneys and gabled 

eaves, 
Through green elm arches and maple 

leaves, — - 
Old homesteads sacred to all that can 
Gladden or sadden the heart of man, 
Over whose thresholds of oak and stone 
Life and Death have come and gone ! 
There pictured tiles in the fireplace 

show, 
Great beams sag from the ceiling low, 
The dresser glitters with polished wares, 
The long clock ticks on the foot -worn 

stairs, 
And the low, broad chimney shows the 

crack 
By the earthquake made a century back. 
Up from their midst springs the village 

spire 
With the crest of its cock in the sun 

afire ; 
Beyond are orchards and planting lands, 
And great salt marshes and glimmering 

sands, 
And, where north and south the coast- 
lines run, 
The blink of the sea in breeze and sun I 



104 The Prophecy of Samuel Sewall 

I see it all like a chart unrolled, 
But my thoughts are full of the past and 

old, 
I hear the tales of my boyhood told ; 
And the shadows and shapes of early days 
Flit dimly by in the veiling haze, 
With measured movement and rhythmic 

chime 
Weaving like shuttles my web of rhyme. 
I think of the old man wise and good 
W T ho once on yon misty hillsides stood 
(A poet who never measured rhyme, 
A seer unknown to his dull-eared time), 
And, propped on his staff of age, looked 

down, 
With his boyhood's love, on his native 

town, 
Where, written, as if on its hills and plains, 
His burden of prophecy yet remains, 
For the voices of wood, and wave, and 

wind 
To read in the ear of the musing mind : — 

" As long as Plum Island, to guard the 
coast 
As God appointed, shall keep its post ; 
As long as a salmon shall haunt the deep 
Of Merrimac River, or sturgeon leap ; 



The Prophecy of Samuel Sew all 105 

As long as pickerel swift and slim, 

Or red -backed perch, in Crane Pond 

swim ; 
As long as the annual sea-fowl know 
Their time to come and their time to go ; 
As long as cattle shall roam at will 
The green, grass meadows by Turkey 

Hill; 
As long as sheep shall look from the side 
Of Oldtown Hill on marishes wide, 
And Parker River and salt-sea tide ; 
As long as a wandering pigeon shall search 
The fields below from his white-oak perch, 
When the barley-harvest is ripe and shorn, 
And the dry husks fall from the standing 

corn ; 
As long as Nature shall not grow old, 
Nor drop her work from her doting hold, 
And her care for the Indian corn forget, 
And the yellow rows in pairs to set ; — 
So long shall Christians here be born, 
Grow up and ripen as God's sweet 

corn ! — 
By the beak of bird, by the breath of frost, 
Shall never a holy ear be lost, 
But, husked by Death in the Planter's 

sight, 
Be sown again in the fields of light ! " 



io6 My Psalm 

The Island still is purple with plums, 

Up the river the salmon comes, 

The sturgeon leaps, and the wild -fowl 

feeds 
On hillside berries and marish seeds, — 
All the beautiful signs remain, 
From spring-time sowing to autumn 

rain 
The good man's vision returns again ! 
And let us hope, as well we can, 
That the Silent Angel who garners man 
May find some grain as of old he found 
In the human cornfield ripe and sound, 
And the Lord of the Harvest deign to 

own 
The precious seed by the fathers sown ! 



« 



MY PSALM. 

MOURN no more my vanished 
years : 
Beneath a tender rain, 
An April rain of smiles and tears, 
My heart is young again. 




My Psalm loy 

The west-winds blow, and singing low, 
I hear the glad streams run ; 

The windows of my soul I throw 
Wide open to the sun. 

No longer forward nor behind 

I look in hope or fear ; 
But, grateful, take the good I find, 

The best of now and here. 

I plough no more a desert land, 
To harvest weed and tare ; 

The manna dropping from God's hand 
Rebukes my painful care. 

I break my pilgrim staff, I lay 

Aside the toiling oar ; 
The angel sought so far away 

I welcome at my door. 

The airs of spring may never play 
Among the ripening corn, 

Nor freshness of the flowers of May 
Blow through the autumn morn ; 

Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look 
Through fringed lids to heaven, 



io8 My Psalm 

And the pale aster in the brook 
Shall see its image given \ — 

The woods shall wear their robes of praise, 
The south-wind softly sigh, 

And sweet, calm days in golden haze 
Melt down the amber sky. 

Not less shall manly deed and word 

Rebuke an age of wrong ; 
The graven flowers that wreathe the 
sword 

Make not the blade less strong. 

But smiting hands shall learn to heal, — 

To build as to destroy ; 
Nor less my heart for others feel 

That I the more enjoy. 

All as God wills, who wisely heeds 

To give or to withhold, 
And knoweth more of all my needs 

Than all my prayers have told ! 

Enough that blessings undeserved 
Have marked my erring track ; 

That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved, 
His chastening turned me back; 



My Psalm log 

That more and more a Providence 

Of love is understood, 
Making the springs of time and sense 

Sweet with eternal good ; — 

That death seems but a covered way 

Which opens into light, 
Wherein no blinded child can stray 

Beyond the Father's sight ; 

That care and trial seem at last, 
Through Memory's sunset air. 

Like mountain-ranges overpast, 
In purple distance fair ; 

That all the jarring notes of life 
Seem blending in a psalm, 

And all the angles of its strife 
Slow rounding into calm. 

And so the shadows fall apart, 
And so the west-w T inds play ; 

And all the windows of my heart 
I open to the day. 



no Barbara Frietchie 




BARBARA FRIETCHIE. 

3 P from the meadows rich with 
corn, 
Clear in the cool September 
morn, 



The clustered spires of Frederick stand 
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland. 

Round about them orchards sweep, 
Apple and peach tree fruited deep, 

Fair as the garden of the Lord 

To the eyes of the famished rebel horde, 

On that pleasant morn of the early fall 
When Lee marched over the mountain- 
wall; 

Over the mountains winding down, 
Horse and foot, into Frederick town. 

Forty flags with their silver stars, 
Forty flags with their crimson bars, 



Barbara Frietchie. in 

Flapped in the morning wind : the sun 
Of noon looked down, and saw not one. 

Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then, 
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten ; 

Bravest of all in Frederick town, 

She took up the flag the men hauled down ; 

In her attic window the staff she set, 
To show that one heart was loyal yet. 

Up the street came the rebel tread, 
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead 

Under his slouched hat left and right 
He glanced ; the old flag met his sight 

" Halt ! " — the dust-brown ranks stood 

fast. 
" Fire ! " — out blazed the rifle-blast. 

It shivered the window, pane and sash ; 
It rent the banner with seam and gash. 

Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff 
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf. 



U2 Barbara Frietchie 

She leaned far out on the window-sill, 
And shook it forth with a royal will. 

" Shoot, if you must, this old gray 

head, 
But spare your country's flag," she said. 

A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, 
Over the face of the leader came ; 

The nobler nature within him stirred 
To life at that woman's deed and word : 

" Who touches a hair of yon gray head 
Dies like a dog ! March on ! " he said. 

All day long through Frederick street 
Sounded the tread of marching feet : 

All day long that free flag tost 
Over the heads of the rebel host. 

Ever its torn folds rose and fell 

On the loyal winds that loved it well ; 

And through the hill-gaps sunset light 
Shone over it with a warm good-night. 



Amy Wentworth iij 

Barbara Frietchie's work is o'er 

And the Rebel rides on his raids no more. 

Honor to her ! and let a tear 

Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's bier. 

Over Barbara Frietchie's grave, 
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave ! 

Peace and order and beauty draw 
Round thy symbol of light and law ; 

And ever the stars above look down 
On thy stars below in Frederick town ! 



AMY WENTWORTH. 

TO WILLIAM BRADFORD. 

S they who watch by sick-beds 
find relief 
Unwittingly from the great stress 
of grief 
And anxious care, in fantasies outwrought 




ii4 dmy JVentwortb 

From the hearth's embers flickering low, 

or caught 
From whispering wind, or tread of pass- 
ing feet, 
Or vagrant memory calling up some sweet 
Snatch of old song or romance, whence or 

why 
They scarcely know or ask, — so, thou 

and I, 
Nursed in the faith that Truth alone is 

strong 
In the endurance which outwearies Wrong, 
With meek persistence baffling brutal 

force, 
And trusting God against the universe, — 
We, doomed to watch a strife we may not 

share 
With other weapons than the patriot's 

prayer, 
Yet owning, with full hearts and moistened 

eyes, 
The awful beauty of self-sacrifice, 
And wrung by keenest sympathy for all 
Who give their loved ones for the living 

wall 
'Twixt law and treason, — in this evil day 
May haply find, through automatic play 



Amy Wentworfb 115 

Of pen and pencil, solace to our pain, 
And hearten others with the strength we 

gain. 
I know it has been said our times require 
No play of art, nor dalliance with the 

lyre, 
No weak essay with Fancy's chloroform 
To calm the hot, mad pulses of the storm, 
But the stern war-blast rather, such as sets 
The battle's teeth of serried bayonets, 
And pictures grim as Vernet's. Yet with 

these 
Some softer tints may blend, and milder 

keys 
Relieve the storm-stunned ear. Let us 

keep sweet, 
If so w r e may, our hearts, even while w T e 

eat 
The bitter harvest of our own device 
And half a century's moral cowardice. 
As Nlirnberg sang while Wittenberg defied, 
And Kranach painted by his Luther's side, 
And through the war-march of the Puritan 
The silver stream of Marvell's music ran, 
So let the household melodies be sung, 
The pleasant pictures on the wall be 

hung, — 



ri6 Amy Wentworth 

So let us hold against the hosts of night 
And slavery all our vantage-ground of 

light. 
Let Treason boast its savagery, and shake 
From its flag-folds its symbol rattlesnake, 
Nurse its fine arts, lay human skins in 

tan, 
And carve its pipe-bowls from the bones 

of man, 
And make the tale of Fijian banquets dull 
By drinking whiskey from a loyal skull, — 
But let us guard, till this sad war shall 

cease, 
(God grant it soon !) the graceful arts of 

peace : 
No foes are conquered who the victors 

teach 
Their vandal manners and barbaric 

speech. 

And while, with hearts of thankfulness, we 
bear 

Of the great common burden our full share, 

Let none upbraid us that the waves en- 
tice 

Thy sea-dipped pencil, or some quaint de- 
vice, 



Amy Wentworth nj 

Rhythmic and sweet, beguiles my pen 
away 

From the sharp strifes and sorrows of to- 
day. 

Thus, while the east - wind keen from 
Labrador 

Sings in the leafless elms, and from the 
shore 

Of the great sea comes the monotonous 
roar 

Of the long-breaking surf, and all the sky 

Is gray with cloud, home-bound and dull, 
I try 

To time a simple legend to the sounds 

Of winds in the woods, and waves on peb- 
bled bounds, — 

A song for oars to chime with, such as 
might 

Be sung by tired sea - painters, who at 
night 

Look from their hemlock camps, by quiet 
cove 

Or beach, moon-lighted, on the waves they 
love. 

(So hast thou looked, when level sunset 
lay 

On the calm bosom of some Eastern bay, 



u8 Amy Wentworfh 

And all the spray-moist rocks and waves 

that rolled 
Up the white sand-slopes flashed with 

ruddy gold.) 
Something it has — a flavor of the sea, 
And the sea's freedom — which reminds 

of thee. 
Its faded picture, dimly smiling down 
From the blurred fresco of the ancient 

town, 
I have not touched with warmer tints in 

vain, 
If, in this dark, sad year, it steals one 

thought from pain. 



Her fingers shame the ivory keys 
They dance so light along ; 

The bloom upon her parted lips 
Is sweeter than the song. 

O perfumed suitor, spare thy smiles ! 

Her thoughts are not of thee ; 
She better loves the salted wind, 

The voices of the sea. 



Amy Wentworfh ug 

Her heart is like an outbound ship 

That at its anchor swings j 
The murmur of the stranded shell 

Is in the song she sings. 

She sings, and, smiling, hears her praise, 

But dreams the while of one 
Who watches from his sea-blown deck 

The icebergs in the sun. 

She questions all the winds that blow, 

And every fog-wreath dim, 
And bids the sea-birds flying north 

Bear messages to him. 

She speeds them with the thanks of men 

He perilled life to save, 
And grateful prayers like holy oil 

To smooth for him the wave. 

Brown Viking of the fishing-smack ! 

Fair toast of all the town ! — 
The skipper's jerkin ill beseems 

The lady's silken gown ! 

But ne'er shall Amy Wentworth wear 
For him the blush of shame 



120 Amy Wentworih 

Who dares to set his manly gifts 
Against her ancient name. 

The stream is brightest at its spring, 
And blood is not like wine ; 

Nor honored less than he who heirs 
Is he who founds a line. 

Full lightly shall the prize be won, 
If love be Fortune's spur ; 

And never maiden stoops to him 
Who lifts himself to her. 

Her home is brave in Jaffrey Street, 
With stately stairways worn 

By feet of old Colonial knights 
And ladies gentle-born. 

Still green about its ample porch 

The English ivy twines, 
Trained back to show in English oak 

The herald's carven signs. 

And on her, from the wainscot old, 

Ancestral faces frown, — 
And this has worn the soldier's sword, 

And that the judge's gown. 



Amy Wentworth 121 

But, strong of will and proud as they, 

She walks the gallery floor 
As if she trod her sailor's deck 

By stormy Labrador ! 

The sweetbrier blooms on Kittery-side, 
And green are Elliot's bowers ; 

Her garden is the pebbled beach, 
The mosses are her flowers. 

She looks across the harbor-bar 

To see the white gulls fly ; 
His greeting from the Northern sea 

Is in their clanging cry. 

She hums a song, and dreams that he, 

As in its romance old, 
Shall homeward ride with silken sails 
And masts of beaten gold ! 

Oh, rank is good, and gold is fair, 
And high and low mate ill ; 

But love has never known a law 
Beyond its own sweet will ! 



% 



122 Snow-Bound 



SNOW-BOUND. 

A WINTER IDYL. 



TO THE MEMORY 
OF 

THE HOUSEHOLD IT DESCRIBES, 
THIS POEM IS DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. 



"As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so 
Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not 
only by the Divine Light of the Sun, but also by our com- 
mon Wood Fire : and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark 
spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same." — Cor. 
Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book I. ch. v. 

" Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight : the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, 
And veils the farm-house at the gardems end. 
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet 
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit 
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm." 

Emerson. The Snow-Storm. 

HE sun that brief December day 
Rose cheerless over hills of gray, 
And, darkly circled, gave at noon 
A sadder light than waning moon. 




Snow-Bound 123 

Slow tracing down the thickening sky 

Its mute and ominous prophecy, 

A portent seeming less than threat, 

It sank from sight before it set. 

A chill no coat, however stout, 

Of homespun stuff could quite shut out, 

A hard, dull bitterness of cold, 

That checked, mid-vein, the circling race 

Of life-blood in the sharpened face, 

The coming of the snow-storm told. 

The wind blew east ; we heard the roar 

Of Ocean on his wintry shore, 

And felt the strong pulse throbbing there 

Beat with low rhythm our inland air. 

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, — 
Brought in the wood from out of doors, 
Littered the stalls, and from the mows 
Raked down the herd's-grass for the cows : 
Heard the horse whinnying for his corn ; 
And, sharply clashing horn on horn, 
Impatient down the stanchion rows 
The cattle shake their walnut bows ; 
While, peering from his early perch 
Upon the scaffold's pole of birch, 
The cock his crested helmet bent 
And down his querulous challenge sent 



124 Snow-Bound 

Unwarmed by any sunset light 

The gray day darkened into night, 

A night made hoary with the swarm, 

And whirl-dance of the blinding storm, 

As zigzag, wavering to and fro, 

Crossed and recrossed the winged snow : 

And ere the early bedtime came 

The white drift piled the window-frame, 

And through the glass the clothes-line 

posts 
Looked in like tall and sheeted ghosts. 

So all night long the storm roared on : 
The morning broke without a sun ; 
In tiny spherule traced with lines 
Of Nature's geometric signs, 
In starry flake, and pellicle, 
All day the hoary meteor fell ; 
And, when the second morning shone, 
We looked upon a world unknown, 
On nothing we could call our own. 
Around the glistening wonder bent 
The blue walls of the firmament, 
No cloud above, no earth below, — 
A universe of sky and snow ! 
The old familiar sights of ours 
Took marvellous shapes; strange domes 
and towers 



Snow-Bound 125 

Rose up where sty or corn-crib stood, 
Or garden-wall, or belt of wood ; 

A smooth white mound the brush -pile 

showed, 
A fenceless drift w 7 hat once w r as road ; 
The bridle-post an old man sat 
With loose -flung coat and high cocked 

hat; 
The well-curb had a Chinese roof ■ 
And even the long sweep, high aloof, 
In its slant splendor, seemed to tell 
Of Pisa's leaning miracle. 

A prompt, decisive man, no breath 
Our father wasted : " Boys, a path ! " 
Well pleased (for when did farmer boy 
Count such a summons less than joy ?) 
Our buskins on our feet w r e drew ; 
With mittened hands, and caps drawn low, 
To guard our necks and ears from snow, 
We cut the solid whiteness through. 
And where the drift w r as deepest, made 
A tunnel w T alled and overlaid 
With dazzling crystal : we had read 
Of rare Aladdin's w T ondrous cave, 
And to our own his name we gave, 
With many a wish the luck were ours 



126 Snow-Bound 

To test his lamp's supernal powers. 
We reached the barn with merry din, 
And roused the prisoned brutes within. 
The old horse thrust his long head out, 
And grave with wonder gazed about ; 
The cock his lusty greeting said, 
And forth his speckled harem led ; 
The oxen lashed their tails, and hooked, 
And mild reproach of hunger looked ; 
The horned patriarch of the sheep, 
Like Egypt's Amun roused from sleep, 
Shook his sage head with gesture mute, 
And emphasized with stamp of foot. 

All day the gusty north-wind bore 
The loosening drift its breath before ; 
Low circling round its southern zone, 
The sun through dazzling snow-mist shone. 
No church-bell lent its Christian tone 
To the savage air, no social smoke 
Curled over woods of snow-hung oak, 
A solitude made more intense 
By dreary-voiced elements, 
The shrieking of the mindless wind, 
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, 
And on the glass the unmeaning beat 
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet 



Snow-Bound i2j 

Beyond the circle of our hearth 
No welcome sound of toil or mirth 
Unbound the spell, and testified 
Of human life and thought outside. 
We minded that the sharpest ear 
The buried brooklet could not hear, 
The music of whose liquid lip 
Had been to us companionship, 
And, in our lonely life, had grown 
To have an almost human tone. 

As night drew on, and, from the crest 
Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, 
The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank 
From sight beneath the smothering bank., 
We piled, with care, our nightly stack 
Of wood against the chimney-back, — 
The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, 
And on its top the stout back-stick ; 
The knotty forestick laid apart, 
And filled between with curious art 
The ragged brush ; then, hovering near, 
We watched the first red blaze appear, 
Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 
On whitewashed wall and sagging beam, 
Until the old, rude-furnished room 
Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom ; 



j 28 Snow-Bound 

While radiant with a mimic flame 
Outside the sparkling drift became, 
And through the bare-boughed lilac-tree 
Our own warm hearth seemed blazing free. 
The crane and pendent trammels showed, 
The Turks' heads on the andirons glowed ; 
While childish fancy, prompt to tell 
The meaning of the miracle, 
Whispered the old rhyme : " Under the 

tree, 
When fire outdoors burns merrily, 
There the witches are making tea" 

The moon above the eastern wood 
Shone at its full ; the hill-range stood 
Transfigured in the silver flood, 
Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, 
Dead white, save where some sharp ravine 
Took shadow, or the sombre green 
Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black 
Against the whiteness at their back, 
For such a world and such a night 
Most fitting that unwarming light, 
Which only seemed where'er it fell 
To make the coldness visible. 

Shut in from all the world without, 
We sat the clean-winged hearth about, 



Snow- Bound 129 

Content to let the north-wind roar 
In baffled rage at pane and door, 
While the red logs before us beat 
The frost-line back with tropic heat ; 
And ever, when a louder blast 
Shook beam and rafter as it passed, 
The merrier up its roaring draught 
The great throat of the chimney laughed ; 
The house-dog on his paws outspread 
Laid to the fire his drowsy head, 
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall 
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall ; 
And, for the winter fireside meet, 
Between the andirons' straddling feet, 
The mug of cider simmered slow, 
The apples sputtered in a row, 
And, close at hand, the basket stood 
With nuts from brown October's wood. 

What matter how the night behaved ? 
What matter how the north-wind raved ? 
Blow high, blow low, not all its snow 
Could quench our hearth-fire's ruddy glow. 
O Time and Change ! — with hair as gray 
As was my sire's that winter day, 
How strange it seems, with so much gone 
Of life and love, to still live on ! 



i jo Snozv-Bound 

Ah, brother ! only I and thou 
Are left of all that circle now, — 
The dear home faces whereupon 
That fitful firelight paled and shone. 
Henceforward, listen as we will, 
The voices of that hearth are still ; 
Look where we may, the wide earth o'er 
Those lighted faces smile no more. 
We tread the paths their feet have worn, 

We sit beneath their orchard trees, 

We hear, like them, the hum of bees 
And rustle of the bladed corn ; 
We turn the pages that they read, 

Their written words we linger o'er, 
But in the sun they cast no shade, 
No voice is heard, no sign is made, 

No step is on the conscious floor ! 
Yet Love will dream, and Faith will trust, 
(Since He who knows our need is just), 
That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 
Alas for him who never sees 
The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! 
Who, hopeless, lays his dead away, 
Nor looks to see the breaking day 
Across the mournful marbles play ! 
Who hath not learned, in hours of faith, 

The truth to flesh and sense unknown, 



Snow-Bound 1 31 

That Life is ever lord of Death, 
And Love can never lose its own ! 

We sped the time with stories old, 
Wrought puzzles out, and riddles told, 
Or stammered from our school-book lore 
"The Chief of Gambia's golden shore." 
How often since, when all the land 
Was clay in Slavery's shaping hand, 
As if a far-blown trumpet stirred 
The languorous sin-sick air, I heard : 
"Does not the voice of reason cry^ 

Claim the first right which Nature gave> 
From the red scourge of bondage fly, 

Nor deign to live a burdened slave J" 
Our father rode again his ride 
On Memphremagog's wooded side ; 
Sat down again to moose and samp 
In trapper's hut and Indian camp ; 
Lived o'er the old idyllic ease 
Beneath St. Francois' hemlock-trees ; 
Again for him the moonlight shone 
On Norman cap and bodiced zone ; 
Again he heard the violin play 
Which led the village dance away, 
And mingled in its merry whirl 
The grandam and the laughing girl, 



ij2 Snow-Bound 

Or, nearer home, our steps he led 
Where Salisbury's level marshes spread 

Mile-wide as flies the laden bee ; 
Where merry mowers, hale and strong, 
Swept, scythe on scythe, their swaths along 

The low green prairies of the sea. 
We shared the fishing off Boar's Head, 
And round the rocky Isles of Shoals 
The hake-broil on the drift-wood coals ; 
The chowder on the sand-beach made, 
Dipped by the hungry, steaming hot, 
With spoons of clam-shell from the pot. 
We heard the tales of witchcraft old, 
And dream and sign and marvel told 
To sleepy listeners as they lay 
Stretched idly on the salted hay, 
Adrift along the winding shores, 

When favoring breezes deigned to blow 
The square sail of the gundelow 
And idle lay the useless oars. 

Our mother, w T hile she turned her wheel 
Or run the new-knit stocking-heel, 
Told how the Indian hordes came down 
At midnight on Cocheco town, 
And how her own great-uncle bore 
His cruel scalp-mark to fourscore. 



Snow-Bound 1 33 

Recalling, in her fitting phrase, 
So rich and picturesque and free, 
(The common unrhymed poetry 
Of simple life and country ways), 
The story of her early days, — 
She made us welcome to her home ; 
Old hearths grew wide to give us room ; 
We stole with her a frightened look 
At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, 
The fame whereof went far and wide 
Through all the simple country side ; 
We heard the hawks at twilight play, 
The boat-horn on Piscataqua, 
The loon's weird laughter far away ; 
We fished her little trout-brook, knew 
What flowers in wood and meadow grew, 
What sunny hillsides autumn-brown 
She climbed to shake the ripe nuts down, 
Saw where in sheltered cove and bay 
The ducks' black squadron anchored lay, 
And heard the wild-geese calling loud 
Beneath the gray November cloud. 

Then, haply, with a look more grave, 
And soberer tone, some tale she gave 
From painful Sewell's ancient tome, 
Beloved in every Quaker home, 



i$4 Snow-Botmd 

Of faith fire-winged by martyrdom, 

Or Chalkiey's Journal, old and quaint, — 

Gentlest of skippers, rare sea-saint ! — 

Who when the dreary calms prevailed, 

And water-butt and bread-cask failed, 

And cruel, hungry eyes pursued 

His portly presence mad for food, 

With dark hints muttered under breath 

Of casting lots for life or death, 

Offered, if Heaven withheld supplies, 

To be himself the sacrifice. 

Then, suddenly, as if to save 

The good man from his living grave, 

A ripple on the water grew, 

A school of porpoise flashed in view. 

" Take, eat," he said, " and be content; 

These fishes in my stead are sent 

By Him who gave the tangled ram 

To spare the child of Abraham." 

Our uncle, innocent of books, 

Was rich in lore of fields and brooks, 

The ancient teachers never dumb 

Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. 

In moons and tides and weather wise, 

He read the clouds as prophecies, 

And foul or fair could well divine, 



Snow-Botmd 135 

By many an occult hint and sign, 
Holding the cunning-warded keys 
To all the woodcraft mysteries ; 
Himself to Nature's heart so near 
That all her voices in his ear 
Of beast or bird had meanings clear, 
Like Apollonius of old, 
Who knew the tales the sparrows told ? 
Or Hermes who interpreted 
What the sage cranes of Nilus said : 
Content to live where life began ; 
A simple, guileless, childlike man, 
Strong only on his native grounds, 
The little world of sights and sounds 
Whose girdle was the parish bounds, 
Whereof his fondly partial pride 
The common features magnified, 
As Surrey hills to mountains grew 
In W 7 hite of Selborne's loving view, — ■ 
He told how teal and loon he shot, 
And how the eagle's eggs he got, 
The feats on pond and river done, 
The prodigies of rod and gun ; 
Till, warming w T ith the tales he told, 
Forgotten was the outside cold, 
The bitter wind unheeded blew, 
From ripening corn the pigeons flew, 



1)6 Snow- Bound 

The partridge drummed i' the wood, the 

mink 
Went fishing down the river-brink. 
In fields with bean or clover gay, 
The woodchuck, like a hermit gray, 

Peered from the doorway of his cell ; 
The muskrat plied the mason's trade, 
And tier by tier his mud-walls laid ; 
And from the shagbark overhead 

The grizzled squirrel dropped his shell. 

Next, the dear aunt, whose smile of cheer 
And voice in dreams I see and hear, — 
The sweetest woman ever Fate 
Perverse denied a household mate, 
Who, lonely, homeless, not the less 
Found peace in love's unselfishness, 
And welcome wheresoe'er she went, 
A calm and gracious element, 
W r hose presence seemed the sweet income 
And womanly atmosphere of home, — 
Called up her girlhood memories, 
The huskings and the apple-bees, 
The sleigh-rides and the summer sails, 
Weaving through all the poor details 
And homespun warp of circumstance 
A golden woof-thread of romance. 



Snow-Bound 137 

For well she kept her genial mood 
And simple faith of maidenhood ; 
Before her still a cloud-land lay, 
The mirage loomed across her way ; 
The morning dew, that dries so soon 
With others, glistened at her noon ; 
Through years of toil and soil and care, 
From glossy tress to thin gray hair, 
All unprofaned she held apart 
The virgin fancies of the heart. 
Be shame to him of woman born 
Who hath for such but thought of scorn. 

There, too, our elder sister plied 
Her evening task the stand beside ; 
A full, rich nature, free to trust, 
Truthful and almost sternly just, 
Impulsive, earnest, prompt to act, 
And make her generous thought a fact, 
Keeping with many a light disguise 
The secret of self-sacrifice. 
O heart sore-tried ! thou hast the best 
That Heaven itself could give thee, — rest, 
Rest from all bitter thoughts and things ! 
How many a poor one's blessing went 
With thee beneath the low green tent 
Whose curtain never outward swings ! 



ij8 Snow-Bound 

As one who held herself a part 
Of all she saw, and let her heart 

Against the household bosom lean, 
Upon the motley-braided mat 
Our youngest and our dearest sat, 
Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes, 

Now bathed in the unfading green 
And holy peace of Paradise. 
Oh, looking from some heavenly hill, 

Or from the shade of saintly palms, 

Or silver reach of river calms, 
Do those large eyes behold me still ? 
With me one little year ago : — 
The chill weight of the winter snow 

For months upon her grave has lain ; 
And now, when summer south-winds blow 

And brier and harebell bloom again, 
I tread the pleasant paths we trod, 
I see the violet-sprinkled sod . 
Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak 
The hillside flowers she loved to seek, 
Yet following me where'er I went 
With dark eyes full of love's content. 
The birds are glad } the brier-rose fills 
The air with sweetness ; all the hills 
Stretch green to June's unclouded sky ; 
But still I wait with ear and eye 



Snow-Bound 139 

For something gone which should be nigh, 
A loss in all familiar things, 
In flower that blooms, and bird that sings. 
And yet, dear heart ! remembering thee, 

Am I not richer than of old ? 
Safe in thy immortality, 

What change can reach the wealth I 
hold? 

What chance can mar the pearl and 
gold 
Thy love hath left in trust with me ? 
And while in life's late afternoon, 

Where cool and long the shadows grow, 
I walk to meet the night that soon 

Shall shape and shadow overflow, 
I cannot feel that thou art far, 
Since near at need the angels are ; 
And when the sunset gates unbar, 

Shall I not see thee waiting stand, 
And, white against the evening star, 

The welcome of thy beckoning hand ? 

Brisk wielder of the birch and rule, 
The master of the district school 
Held at the fire his favored place, 
Its warm glow lit a laughing face 
Fresh -hued and fair, where scarce ap- 
peared 



140 Snow-Bound 

The uncertain prophecy of beard. 
He teased the mitten-blinded cat, 
Played cross-pins on my uncle's hat, 
Sang songs, and told us what befalls 
In classic Dartmouth's college halls. 
Born the wild Northern hills among, 
From whence his yeoman father wrung 
By patient toil subsistence scant, 
Not competence and yet not want, 
He early gained the power to pay 
His cheerful, self-reliant way ; 
Could doff at ease his scholar's gown 
To peddle wares from town to town ; 
Or through the long vacation's reach 
In lonely lowland districts teach, 
Where all the droll experience found 
At stranger hearths in boarding round, 
The moonlit skater's keen delight, 
The sleigh-drive through the frosty night, 
The rustic party, with its rough 
Accompaniment of blind-man's-buff, 
And whirling plate, and forfeits paid, 
His winter task a pastime made. 
Happy the snow-locked homes wherein 
He tuned his merry violin, 
Or played the athlete in the barn, 
Or held the good dame's winding-yarn, 



Snow-Bound 141 

Or mirth-provoking versions told 
Of classic legends rare and old, 
Wherein the scenes of Greece and Rome 
Had all the commonplace of home, 
And little seemed at best the odds 
'Twixt Yankee pedlers and old gods ; 
Where Pindus-born Arachthus took 
The guise of any grist-mill brook, 
And dread Olympus at his will 
Became a huckleberry hill. 

A careless boy that night he seemed ; 

But at his desk he had the look 
And air of one who wisely schemed, 
And hostage from the future took 
In trained thought and lore of book. 
Large-brained, clear-eyed, of such as he 
Shall Freedom's young apostles be, 
W r ho, following in W r ar's bloody trail, 
Shall every lingering wrong assail ; 
All chains from limb and spirit strike, 
Uplift the black and white alike ; 
Scatter before their swift advance 
The darkness and the ignorance, 
The pride, the lust, the squalid sloth, 
Which nurtured Treason's monstrous 
growth, 



142 Snow-Bound 

Made murder pastime, and the hell 

Of prison-torture possible ; 

The cruel lie of caste refute, 

Old forms remould, and substitute 

For Slavery's lash the freeman's will, 

For blind routine, wise-handed skill ; 

A school-house plant on every hill, 

Stretching in radiate nerve-lines thence 

The quick wires of intelligence ; 

Till North and South together brought 

Shall own the same electric thought, 

In peace a common flag salute, 

And, side by side in labor's free 

And unresentful rivalry, 

Harvest the fields wherein they fought. 

Another guest that winter night 

Flashed back from lustrous eyes the light. 

Unmarked by time, and yet not young, 

The honeyed music of her tongue 

And words of meekness scarcely told 

A nature passionate and bold, 

Strong, self-concentred, spurning guide, 

Its milder features dwarfed beside 

Her unbent will's majestic pride. 

She sat among us, at the best, 

A not unf eared, half- welcome guest, 

Rebuking with her cultured phrase 



Snow-Bound 143 

Our homeliness of words and ways. 
A certain pard-like, treacherous grace 

Swayed the lithe limbs and dropped the 
lash, 

Lent the white teeth their dazzling flash ; 

And under low brows, black with night, 

Rayed out at times a dangerous light ; 
The sharp heat-lightnings of her face 
Presaging ill to him whom Fate 
Condemned to share her love or hate. 
A woman tropical, intense 
In thought and act, in soul and sense. 
She blended in a like degree 
The vixen and the devotee, 
Revealing with each freak or feint 

The temper of Petruchio's Kate, 
The raptures of Siena's saint 
Her tapering hand and rounded wrist 
Had facile power to form a fist ; 
The warm, dark languish of her eyes 
Was never safe from wrath's surprise. 
Brows saintly calm and lips devout 
Knew every change of scowl and pout ; 
And the sweet voice had notes more high 
And shrill for social battle-cry. 

Since then what old cathedral town 
Has missed her pilgrim staff and gown, 



144 Snow-Bound 

What convent-gate has held its lock 
Against the challenge of her knock ! 
Through Smyrna's plague-hushed thor- 
oughfares, 
Up sea-set Malta's rocky stairs, 
Gray olive slopes of hills that hem 
Thy tombs and shrines, Jerusalem, 
Or startling on her desert throne 
The crazy Queen of Lebanon 
With claims fantastic as her own, 
Her tireless feet have held their way ; 
And still, unrestful, bowed, and gray, 
She watches under Eastern skies, 

With hope each day renewed and fresh, 
The Lord's quick coming in the flesh, 
Whereof she dreams and prophesies ! 

Where'er her troubled path may be, 
The Lord's sweet pity with her go ! 

The outward wayward life we see, 

The hidden springs we may not know. 

Nor is it given us to discern 

What threads the fatal sisters spun, 
Through what ancestral years has run 

The sorrow with the woman born, 

What forged her cruel chain of moods, 

What set her feet in solitudes, 



Snow-Bound 1 45 

And held the love within her mute, 
What mingled madness in the blood, 

A life-long discord and annoy, 

Water of tears with oil of joy, 
And hid within the folded bud 

Perversities of flower and fruit. 
It is not ours to separate 
The tangled skein of will and fate, 
To show what metes and bounds should 

stand 
Upon the soul's debatable land, 
And between choice and Providence 
Divide the circle of events ; 
But He who knows our frame is just, 
Merciful and compassionate, 
And full of sweet assurances 
And hope for all the language is, 
That He remembereth we are dust ! 

At last the great logs, crumbling low, 
Sent out a dull and duller glow, 
The bulKs-eye watch that hung in view, 
Ticking its weary circuit through. 
Pointed with mutely warning sign 
Its black hand to the hour of nine. 
That sign the pleasant circle broke : 
My uncle ceased his pipe to smoke, 



146 Snow-Bound 

Knocked from its bowl the refuse gray, 
And laid it tenderly away, 
Then roused himself to safely cover 
The dull red brands with ashes over. 
And while, with care, our mother laid 
The work aside, her steps she stayed 
One moment, seeking to express 
Her grateful sense of happiness 
For food and shelter, warmth and health, 
And love's contentment more than wealth, 
With simple wishes (not the weak, 
Vain prayers which no fulfilment seek, 
But such as warm the generous heart, 
O'er-prompt to do with Heaven its part) 
That none might lack, that bitter night, 
For bread and clothing, warmth and light. 

Within our beds awhile we heard 
The wind that round the gables roared, 
With now and then a ruder shock, 
Which made our very bedsteads rock. 
We heard the loosened clapboards tost, 
The board-nails snapping in the frost ; 
And on us, through the unplastered wall, 
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall. 
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do 
When hearts are light and life is new ; 
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew. 



Snow-Bound 147 

Till in the summer-land of dreams 
They softened to the sound of streams, 
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars, 
And lapsing waves on quiet shores. 

Next morn we wakened with the shout 
Of merry voices high and clear ; 
And saw the teamsters drawing near 
To break the drifted highways out. 
Down the long hillside treading slow 
We saw the half-buried oxen go, 
Shaking the snow from heads uptost, 
Their straining nostrils white with frost. 
Before our door the straggling train 
Drew up, an added team to gain. 
The elders threshed their hands a-cold, 

Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes 

From lip to lip ; the younger folks 
Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, 

rolled, 
Then toiled again the cavalcade 

O'er windy hill, through clogged ra- 
vine, 

And woodland paths that wound be- 
tween 
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed. 
From every barn a team afoot, 
At every house a new recruit, 



148 Snow-Bound 

Where, drawn by Nature's subtlest law 
Haply the watchful young men saw 
Sweet doorway pictures of the curls 
And curious eyes of merry girls, 
Lifting their hands in mock defence 
Against the snow-ball's compliments, 
And reading in each missive tost 
The charm with Eden never lost. 

We heard once more the sleigh - bells' 
sound; 

And, following where the teamsters led, 
The wise old Doctor went his round, 
Just pausing at our door to say, 
In the brief autocratic way 
Of one who, prompt at Duty's call, 
Was free to urge her claim on all, 

That some poor neighbor sick abed 
At night our mother's aid would need. 
For, one in generous thought and deed, 

What mattered in the sufferer's sight 

The Quaker matron's inward light, 
The Doctor's mail of Calvin's creed ? 
All hearts confess the saints elect 

Who, twain in faith, in love agree, 
And melt not in an acid sect 

The Christian pearl of charity ! 



Snow-Bound 149 

So days went on : a week had passed 

Since the great world was heard from last 

The Almanac we studied o'er, 

Read and reread our little store, 

Of books and pamphlets, scarce a score ; 

One harmless novel, mostly hid 

From younger eyes, a book forbid, 

And poetry, (or good or bad, 

A single book was all we had,) 

Where Ellwood's meek, drab-skirted Muse, 

A stranger to the heathen Nine, 

Sang, with a somewhat nasal whine. 
The wars of David and the Jews. 
At last the floundering carrier bore 
The village paper to our door. 
Lo ! broadening outward as we read, 
To warmer zones the horizon spread ; 
In panoramic length unrolled 
We saw the marvels that it told. 
Before us passed the painted Creeks, 

And daft McGregor on his raids 

In Costa Rica's everglades. 
And up Taygetos winding slow 
Rode Ypsilanti's Mainote Greeks, 
A Turk's head at each saddle-bow ! 
Welcome to us its week-old news, 
Its corner for the rustic Muse, 



150 Snow-Bound 

Its monthly gauge of snow and rain, 
Its record, mingling in a breath 
The wedding knell and dirge of death ; 
Jest, anecdote, and love-lorn tale, 
The latest culprit sent to jail ; 
Its hue and cry of stolen and lost, 
Its vendue sales and goods at cost, 

And traffic calling loud for gain. 
We felt the stir of hall and street, 
The pulse of life that round us beat ; 
The chill embargo of the snow 
Was melted in the genial glow ; 
Wide swung again our ice-locked door, 
And all the world was ours once more I 

Clasp, Angel of the backward look 
And folded wings of ashen gray 
And voice of echoes far away, 
The brazen covers of thy book ; 
The weird palimpsest old and vast, 
Wherein thou hid'st the spectral past \ 
Where, closely mingling, pale and glow 
The characters of joy and woe ; 
The monographs of outlived years, 
Or smile-illumed or dim with tears, 

Green hills of life that slope to death, 
And haunts of home, whose vistaed trees 



Snow- Bound 151 

Shade off to mournful cypresses 

With the white amaranths underneath. 
Even while I look, I can but heed 

The restless sands' incessant fall, 
Importunate hours that hours succeed, 
Each clamorous with its own sharp need, 

And duty keeping pace with all. 
Shut down and clasp the heavy lids ; 
I hear again the voice that bids 
The dreamer leave his dream midway 
For larger hopes and graver fears : 
Life greatens in these later years, 
The century's aloe flowers to-day ! 
Yet haply, in some lull of life, 
Some Truce of God which breaks its 

strife, 
The worldling's eyes shall gather dew, 

Dreaming in throngful city ways 
Of winter joys his boyhood knew; 
And dear and early friends — the few 
Who yet remain — shall pause to view 

These Flemish pictures of old days ; 
Sit with me by the homestead hearth, 
And stretch the hands of memory forth 

To warm them at the wood-fire's blaze ! 
And thanks untraced to lips unknown 
Shall greet me like the odors blown 



1 52 The Wreck of Rivermoufb 

From unseen meadows newly mown, 
Or lilies floating in some pond, 
Wood-fringed, the wayside gaze beyond ; 
The traveller owns the grateful sense 
Of sweetness near, he knows not whence, 
And, pausing, takes with forehead bare 
The benediction of the air. 



THE WRECK OF RIVERMOUTH. 



MSI 



|ag5| IVERMOUTH Rocks are fair to 

see, 

By dawn or sunset shone across, 

When the ebb of the sea has left them free, 

To dry their fringes of gold-green moss : 

For there the river comes winding down, 

From salt sea - meadows and uplands 

brown, 
And waves on the outer rocks afoam 
Shout to its waters, " Welcome home ! " 

And fair are the sunny isles in view 
East of the grisly Head of the Boar, 



The Wreck of Rivermouth 1 55 

And Agamenticus lifts its blue 

Disk of a cloud the woodlands o'er \ 
And southerly, when the tide is down, 
'Twixt white sea -waves and sand-hills 

brown, 
The beach-birds dance and the gray gulls 

wheel 
Over a floor of burnished steel. 

Once, in the old Colonial days, 

Two hundred years ago and more, 
A boat sailed dow r n through the winding 
ways 
Of Hampton River to that low shore, 
Full of a goodly company 
Sailing out on the summer sea, 
Veering to catch the land-breeze light, 
With the Boar to left and the Rocks to 
right. 

In Hampton meadows, where mowers 
laid 
Their scythes to the swaths of salted 
grass, 
" Ah, well-a-day ! our hay must be made ! " 
A young man sighed, who saw them 
pass. 



i$4 The Wreck of Rivermouth 

Loud laughed his fellows to see him stand 
Whetting his scythe with a listless hand, 
Hearing a voice in a far-off song, 
Watching a white hand beckoning long. 

" Fie on the witch ! " cried a merry girl, 
As they rounded the point where Goody 
Cole 

Sat by her door with her wheel atwirl, 
A bent and blear-eyed poor old soul. 

"Oho!" she muttered, "ye 're brave to- 
day ! 

But I hear the little waves laugh and say, 

1 The broth will be cold that waits at home ; 

For it 's one to go, but another to come ! ' " 

" She 's cursed," said the skipper ; " speak 

her fair : 
I 'm scary always to see her shake 
Her wicked head, with its wild gray hair, 
And nose like a hawk, and eyes like a 

snake." 
But merrily still, with laugh and shout, 
From Hampton River the boat sailed out, 
Till the huts and the flakes on Star seemed 

nigh, 
And they lost the scent of the pines of 

Rye. 



The Wreck of Rivermouth 155 

They dropped their lines in the lazy tide, 
Drawing up haddock and mottled cod ; 
They saw not the Shadow that walked 

beside, 
They heard not the feet with silence 

shod. 
But thicker and thicker a hot mist grew, 
Shot by the lightnings through and 

through j 
And muffled growls, like the growl of a 

beast, 
Ran along the sky from west to east 

Then the skipper looked from the darken- 
ing sea 
Up to the dimmed and wading sun ; 

But he spake like a brave man cheerily, 
"Yet there is time for our homeward 
run." 

Veering and tacking, they backward wore ; 

And just as a breath from the woods 
ashore 

Blew out to whisper of danger past, 

The wrath of the storm came down at 
last! 

The skipper hauled at the heavy sail : 
" God be our help ! " he only cried, 



1 56 The Wreck of Rivermouth 

As the roaring gale, like the stroke of a 
flail, 
Smote the boat on its starboard side. 
The Shoalsmen looked, but saw alone 
Dark films of rain-cloud slantwise blown, 
Wild rocks lit up by the lightning's glare, 
The strife and torment of sea and air. 

Goody Cole looked out from her door : 
The Isles of Shoals were drowned and 
gone, 
Scarcely she saw the Head of the Boar 

Toss the foam from tusks of stone. 
She clasped her hands with a grip of pain, 
The tear on her cheek was not of rain : 
" They are lost," she muttered, " boat and 

crew ! 
Lord, forgive me ! my words were true ! " 

Suddenly seaward swept the squall ; 
The low sun smote through cloudy 
rack; 
The Shoals stood clear in the light, and 
all 
The trend of the coast lay hard and 
black. 
But far and wide as eye could reach, 
No life was seen upon wave or beach ; 



The Wreck of River mouth 757 

The boat that went out at morning never 
Sailed back again into Hampton River. 

O mower, lean on thy bended snath, 

Look from the meadows green and low : 
The wind of the sea is a waft of death, 

The waves are singing a song of woe ! 
By silent river, by moaning sea, 
Long and vain shall thy watching be : 
Never again shall the sweet voice call, 
Never the white hand rise and fall ! 

O Rivermouth Rocks, how sad a sight 
Ye saw in the light of breaking day ! 
Dead faces looking up cold and white 

From sand and seaweed where they lay. 
The mad old witch-wife wailed and wept, 
And cursed the tide as it backward crept : 
"Crawl back, crawl back, blue water-snake ! 
Leave your dead for the hearts that 
break ! " 

Solemn it was in that old day 

In Hampton town and its log- built 
church, 
Where side by side the coffins lay 

And the mourners stood in aisle and 
porch. 



1 58 The Wreck of Rivermouth 

In the singing-seats young eyes were dim, 
The voices faltered that raised the hymn, 
And Father Dalton, grave and stern, 
Sobbed through his prayer and wept in 
turn. 

But his ancient colleague did not pray ; 

Under the weight of his fourscore years 
He stood apart with the iron-gray 

Of his strong brows knitted to hide his 
tears ; 
And a fair-faced woman of doubtful fame, 
Linking her own with his honored name, 
Subtle as sin, at his side withstood 
The felt reproach of her neighborhood. 

Apart with them, like them forbid, 

Old Goody Cole looked drearily round, 
As, two by two, with their faces hid, 
The mourners walked to the burying- 

ground. 
She let the staff from her clasped hands 

fall: 
" Lord, forgive us ! we 're sinners all ! " 
And the voice of the old man answered 

her: 
" Amen ! " said Father Bachiler. 



The Wreck of Rivermouth 159 

So, as I sat upon Appledore 

In the calm of a closing summer day, 
And the broken lines of Hampton shore 

In purple mist of cloudland lay, 
The Rivermouth Rocks their story told 3 
And waves aglow with sunset gold, 
Rising and breaking in steady chime, 
Beat the rhythm and kept the time. 

And the sunset paled, and warmed once 
more 
With a softer, tenderer after-glow ; 

In the east was moon-rise, with boats off- 
shore 
And sails in the distance drifting slow. 

The beacon glimmered from Portsmouth 
bar, 

The White Isle kindled its great red star ; 

And life and death in my old-time lay 

Mingled in peace like the night and day ! 




i6o The Dead Ship of Harpswell 



THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL. 

HAT flecks the outer gray be- 
yond 
The sundown's golden trail ? 
The white flash of a sea-bird's wing, 

Or gleam of slanting sail ? 
Let young eyes watch from Neck and 
Point, 
And sea-w r orn elders pray, — 
The ghost of what was once a ship 
Is sailing up the bay ! 

From gray sea-fog, from icy drift, 

From peril and from pain, 
The home-bound fisher greets thy lights, 

O hundred-harbored Maine ! 
But many a keel shall seaward turn, 

And many a sail outstand, 
When, tall and white, the Dead Ship 
looms 

Against the dusk of land. 

She rounds the headland's bristling pines ; 
She threads the isle-set bay ; 



The Dead Ship of Harpswell 161 

No spur of breeze can speed her on, 

Nor ebb of tide delay. 
Old men still walk the Isle of Orr 

Who tell her date and name, 
Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards 

Who hewed her oaken frame. 

What weary doom of battled quest, 

Thou sad sea-ghost, is thine ? 
What makes thee in the haunts of home 

A wonder and a sign ? 
Xo foot is on thy silent deck, 

Upon thy helm no hand ; 
No ripple hath the soundless wind 

That smites thee from the land ! 

For never comes the ship to port, 

Howe'er the breeze may be ; 
Just when she nears the waiting shore 

She drifts again to sea. 
No tack of sail, nor turn of helm, 

Nor sheer of veering side ; 
Stern-fore she drives to sea and night, 

Against the wind and tide. 

In vain o'er Harpswell Neck the star 
Of evening guides her in ; 



i62 The Dead Ship of Harpswell 

In vain for her the lamps are lit 

Within thy tower, Seguin ! 
In vain the harbor-boat shall hail, 

In vain the pilot call ; 
No hand shall reef her spectral sail, 

Or let her anchor fall. 

Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy, 

Your gray-head hints of ill ; 
And, over sick-beds whispering low, 

Your prophecies fulfil. 
Some home amid yon birchen trees 

Shall drape its door with woe ; 
And slowly where the Dead Ship sails, 

The burial boat shall row ! 

From Wolf Neck and from Flying Point, 

From island and from main, 
From sheltered cove and tided creek, 

Shall glide the funeral train. 
The dead-boat with the bearers four, 

The mourners at her stern, — 
And one shall go the silent way 

Who shall no more return ! 

And men shall sigh, and women weep, 
Whose dear ones pale and pine, 



Abraham Davenport 163 

And sadly over sunset seas 

Await the ghostly sign. 
They know not that its sails are filled 

By pity's tender breath, 
Nor see the Angel at the helm 

Who steers the Ship of Death ! 



3 



ABRAHAM DAVENPORT, 

the old days (a custom laid 

aside 

With breeches and cocked hats) 

the people sent 

Their wisest men to make the public laws. 

And so, from a brown homestead, where 

the Sound 
Drinks the small tribute of the Mianas, 
Waved over by the woods of Rippowams, 
And hallowed by pure lives and tranquil 

deaths, 
Stamford sent up to the councils of the 

State 
Wisdom and grace in Abraham Daven- 
port. 




164 Abraham Davenport 

'T was on a May-day of the far old year 
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell 
Over the bloom and sweet life of the 

Spring, 
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of 

noon, 
A horror of great darkness, like the night 
In day of which the Norland sagas tell, — 
The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung 

sky 
Was black with ominous clouds, save 

where its rim 
Was fringed with a dull glow, like that 

which climbs 
The crater's sides from the red hell below. 
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn- 
yard fowls 
Roosted ; the cattle at the pasture bars 
Lowed, and looked homeward ; bats on 

leathern wings 
Flitted abroad ; the sounds of labor died ; 
Men prayed, and women wept ; all ears 

grew sharp 
To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet 

shatter 
The black sky, that the dreadful face of 

Christ 



Abraham Davenport 165 

Might look from the rent clouds, not as 

he looked 
A loving guest at Bethany, but stern 
As Justice and inexorable Law. 

Meanwhile in the old State House, dim 
as ghosts, 
Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut, 
Trembling beneath their legislative robes. 
" It is the Lord's Great Day ! Let us ad- 
journ," 
Some said ; and then, as if with one ac- 
cord, 
All eyes were turned to Abraham Daven- 
port. 
He rose, slow cleaving with his steady 

voice 
The intolerable hush. " This well may be 
The Day of Judgment which the world 

awaits ; 
But be it so or not, I only know 
My present duty, and my Lord's com- 
mand 
To occupy till He come. So at the post 
Where He hath set me in His providence, 
I choose, for one, to meet Him face to 
face, — 



1 66 Abraham Davenport 

No faithless servant frightened from my 

task, 
But ready when the Lord of the harvest 

calls ; 
And therefore, with all reverence, I w r ould 

say, 
Let God do His work, we will see to ours. 
Bring in the candles." And they brought 

them in. 

Then by the flaring lights the Speaker 
read, 
Albeit with husky voice and shaking hands, 
An act to amend an act to regulate 
The shad and alewive fisheries. Where- 
upon 
Wisely and well spake Abraham Daven- 
port, 
Straight to the question, with no figures 

of speech 
Save the ten Arab signs, yet not without 
The shrewd dry humor natural to the 

man : 
His awe-struck colleagues listening all the 

while, 
Between the pauses of his argument, 



Nauhaught, the Deacon i6y 

To hear the thunder of the wrath of God 
Break from the hollow trumpet of the 
cloud. 

And there he stands in memory to this 
day, 
Erect, self-poised, a rugged face, half seen 
Against the background of unnatural dark, 
A witness to the ages as they pass, 
That simple duty hath no place for fear. 



NAUHAUGHT, THE DEACON. 




AUHAUGHT, the Indian deacon, 
who of old 
Dwelt, poor but blameless, where 
his narrowing Cape 
Stretches its shrunk arm out to all the 

winds 
And the relentless smiting of the waves, 
Awoke one morning from a pleasant 

dream 
Of a good angel dropping in his hand 
A fair, broad gold-piece, in the name of 
God. 



1 68 Nauhaught, the Deacon 

He rose and went forth with the early day 
Far inland, where the voices of the waves 
Mellowed and mingled with the whispering 

leaves, 
As, through the tangle of the low, thick 

woods, 
He searched his traps. Therein nor 

beast nor bird 
He found ; though meanwhile in the 

reedy pools 
The otter plashed, and underneath the 

pines 
The partridge drummed : and as his 

thoughts went back 
To the sick wife and little child at home, 
What marvel that the poor man felt his 

faith 
Too weak to bear its burden, — like a 

rope 
That, strand by strand uncoiling, breaks 

above 
The hand that grasps it. " Even now, O 

Lord! 
Send me," he prayed, " the angel of my 

dream ! 
Nauhaught is very poor ; he cannot wait." 

Even as he spake he heard at his bare feet 



Nauhaughtj the Deacon 169 

A low, metallic clink, and, looking down, 
He saw a dainty purse with disks of gold 
Crowding its silken net. Awhile he held 
The treasure up before his eyes, alone 
With his great need, feeling the wondrous 

coins 
Slide through his eager ringers, one by 

one. 
So then the dream was true. The angel 

brought 
One broad piece only ; should he take all 

these ? 
Who would be wiser, in the blind, dumb 

woods ? 
The loser, doubtless rich, would scarcely 

miss 
This dropped crumb from a table always 

full. 
Still, while he mused, he seemed to hear 

the cry 
Of a starved child ; the sick face of his 

wife 
Tempted him. Heart and flesh in fierce 

revolt 
Urged the wild license of his savage youth 
Against his later scruples. Bitter toil, 
Prayer, fasting, dread of blame, and piti- 
less eyes 



ijo Naubaugbt, the Deacon 

To watch his halting, — had he lost for 
these 

The freedom of the woods ; — the hunting- 
grounds 

Of happy spirits for a walled-in heaven 

Of everlasting psalms ? One healed the 
sick 

Very far off thousands of moons ago : 

Had he not prayed him night and day to 
come 

And cure his bed-bound wife ? Was 
there a hell ? 

Were all his fathers' people writhing 
there — 

Like the poor shell-fish set to boil alive — 

Forever, dying never ? If he kept 

This gold, so needed, would the dreadful 
God 

Torment him like a Mohawk's captive 
stuck 

With slow-consuming splinters ? Would 
the saints 

And the white angels dance and laugh to 
see him 

Burn like a pitch-pine torch ? His Chris- 
tian garb 

Seemed falling from him ; with the fear 
and shame 



Naubaught, the Deacon lyi 

Of Adam naked at the cool of day, 

He gazed around. A black snake lay in 

coil 
On the hot sand, a crow with sidelong 

eye 
Watched from a dead bough. All his In- 
dian lore 
Of evil blending with a convert's faith 
In the supernal terrors of the Book, 
He saw the Tempter in the coiling snake 
And ominous, black-winged bird ; and all 

the while 
The low rebuking of the distant waves 
Stole in upon him like the voice of God 
Among the trees of Eden. Girding up 
His soul's loins with a resolute hand, he 

thrust 
The base thought from him : " Nauhaught, 

be a man ! 
Starve, if need be ; but, while you live, 

look out 
From honest eyes on all men, unashamed. 
God help me ! I am deacon of the church, 
A baptized, praying Indian ! Should I do 
This secret meanness, even the barken 

knots 
Of the old trees would turn to eyes to 

see it, 



i?2 Nauhaught, the Deacon 

The birds would tell of it, and all the 
leaves 

Whisper above me : ' Nauhaught is a 
thief ! ' 

The sun would know it, and the stars that 
hide 

Behind his light would watch me, and at 
night 

Follow me with their sharp, accusing eyes. 

Yea, thou, God, seest me ! " Then Nau- 
haught drew 

Closer his belt of leather, dulling thus 

The pain of hunger, and walked bravely 
back 

To the brown fishing-hamlet by the sea ; 

And, pausing at the inn-door, cheerily 
asked : 

" Who hath lost aught to-day ? " 

" I," said a voice ; 

" Ten golden pieces, in a silken purse, 

My daughter's handiwork." He looked, 
and lo ! 

One stood before him in a coat of frieze, 

And the glazed hat of a seafaring man, 

Shrewd-faced, broad-shouldered, with no 
trace of wings. 

Marvelling, he dropped within the stran- 
ger's hand 



Nauhaugbt, the Deacon 173 

The silken web, and turned to go his way. 
But the man said : " A tithe at least is 

yours ; 
Take it in God's name as an honest man." 
And as the deacon's dusky ringers closed 
Over the golden gift, " Yea, in God's name 
I take it, with a poor man's thanks," he 

said. 

So down the street that, like a river of 

sand, 
Ran, white in sunshine, to the summer sea, 
He sought his home, singing and praising 

God; 
And when his neighbors in their careless 

way 
Spoke of the owner of the silken purse — 
A Wellfleet skipper, known in every port 
That the Cape opens in its sandy wall — 
He answered, with a wise smile, to him- 
self : 
" I saw the angel where they see a man." 



% 



1J4 l n School-Days 



IN SCHOOL-DAYS. 




TILL sits the school-house by the 
road, 
A ragged beggar sleeping ; 
Around it still the sumachs grow, 
And blackberry-vines are creeping. 

Within, the master's desk is seen, 
Deep scarred by raps official ; 

The warping floor, the battered seats, 
The jack-knife's carved initial ; 

The charcoal frescos on its wall ; 

Its door's worn sill, betraying 
The feet that, creeping slow to school, 

Went storming out to playing ! 

Long years ago a winter sun 

Shone over it at setting ; 
Lit up its western window-panes, 

And low eaves' icy fretting. 

It touched the tangled golden curls, 
And brown eyes full of grieving, 



In School-Days 775 

Of one who still her steps delayed 
When all the school were leaving. 

For near her stood the little boy 

Her childish favor singled : 
His cap pulled low upon a face 

Where pride and shame were mingled. 

Pushing with restless feet the snow 
To right and left, he lingered ; — 

As restlessly her tiny hands 

The blue-checked apron fingered. 

He saw her lift her eyes ; he felt 
The soft hand's light caressing, 

And heard the tremble of her voice, 
As if a fault confessing, 

" I 'm sorry that I spelt the word : 

I hate to go above you, 
Because," — the brown eyes lower fell, — 

" Because you see, I love you ! " 

Still memory to a gray-haired man 
That sweet child-face is showing. 

Dear girl ! the grasses on her grave 
Have forty years been growing! 



iy6 Sunset on the Bear camp 

He lives to learn, in life's hard school, 
How few who pass above him 

Lament their triumph and his loss, 
Like her, — because they love him. 




SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP. 

GOLD fringe on the purpling 

hem 
Of hills the river runs, 
As down its long, green valley falls 

The last of summer's suns. 
Along its tawny gravel-bed 

Broad-flowing, swift, and still, 
As if its meadow levels felt 

The hurry of the hill, 
Noiseless between its banks of green 

From curve to curve it slips ; 
The drowsy maple-shadows rest 
Like fingers on its lips. 

A waif from Carroll's wildest hills, 

Unstoried and unknown ; 
The ursine legend of its name 

Prowls on its banks alone. 



Sunset on the Bear camp 177 

Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn 

As ever Yarrow knew, 
Or, under rainy Irish skies, 

By Spenser's Mulla grew ; 
And through the gaps of leaning trees 

Its mountain cradle shows : 
The gold against the amethyst, 

The green against the rose. 

Touched by a light that hath no name, 

A glory never sung, 
Aloft on sky and mountain wall 

Are God's great pictures hung. 
How changed the summits vast and 
old! 

No longer granite-brow r ed, 
They melt in rosy mist ; the rock 

Is softer than the cloud ; 
The valley holds its breath ; no leaf 

Of all its elms is twirled : 
The silence of eternity 

Seems falling on the world. 

The pause before the breaking seals 

Of mystery is this ; 
Yon miracle-play of night and day 

Makes dumb its witnesses. 



iy8 Sunset on the Bear camp 

What unseen altar crowns the hills 

That reach up stair on stair ? 
What eyes look through, what white wings 
fan 

These purple veils of air ? 
What Presence from the heavenly heights 

To those of earth stoops down ? 
Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods 

On Ida's snowy crown ! 

Slow fades the vision of the sky, 

The golden water pales, 
And over all the valley-land 

A gray-winged vapor sails. 
I go the common way of all ; 

The sunset fires will burn, 
The flowers will blow, the river flow, 

When I no more return. 
No whisper from the mountain pine 

Nor lapsing stream shall tell 
The stranger, treading where I tread, 

Of him who loved them well. 

But beauty seen is never lost, 

God's colors all are fast ; 
The glory of this sunset heaven 

Into my soul has passed, 



Sunset on the Bear camp 1J9 

A sense of gladness unconfined 

To mortal date or clime ; 
As the soul liveth, it shall live 

Beyond the years of time. 
Beside the mystic asphodels 

Shall bloom the home-born flowers, 
And new horizons flush and glow 

With sunset hues of ours. 

Farewell ! these smiling hills must wear 

Too soon their wintry frown, 
And snow-cold winds from off them shake 

The maple's red leaves down. 
But I shall see a summer sun 

Still setting broad and low ; 
The mountain slopes shall blush and 
bloom, 

The golden water flow. 
A lover's claim is mine on all 

I see to have and hold, — 
The rose-light of perpetual hills, 

And sunsets never cold ! 




180 William Francis Bar tie it 



WILLIAM FRANCIS BARTLETT. 

H, well may Essex sit forlorn 
Beside her sea-blown shore ; 
Her well beloved, her noblest 
born, 
Is hers in life no more ! 

No lapse of years can render less 

Her memory's sacred claim ; 
No fountain of forgetfulness 

Can wet the lips of Fame. 

A grief alike to wound and heal, 
A thought to soothe and pain, 

The sad, sweet pride that mothers feel 
To her must still remain. 

Good men and true she has not lacked, 

And brave men yet shall be ; 
The perfect flower, the crowning fact, 

Of all her years was he ! 

As Galahad pure, as Merlin sage, 
What worthier knight was found 

To grace in Arthur's golden age 
The fabled Table Round ? 



William Francis Bartlett 181 

A voice, the battle's trumpet-note, 

To welcome and restore ; 
A hand, that all unwilling smote, 

To heal and build once more ! 

A soul of fire, a tender heart 

Too warm for hate, he knew 
The generous victor's graceful part 

To sheathe the sword he drew. 

When Earth, as if on evil dreams, 

Looks back upon her wars, 
And the white light of Christ outstreams 

From the red disk of Mars, 

His fame who led the stormy van 

Of battle well may cease, 
But never that which crowns the man 

Whose victory was Peace. 

Mourn, Essex, on thy sea-blown shore 

Thy beautiful and brave, 
Whose failing hand the olive bore, 

Whose dying lips forgave ! 

Let age lament the youthful chief, 
And tender eyes be dim ; 



182 



The Henchman 



The tears are more of joy than grief 
That fall for one like him ! 




THE HENCHMAN. 

Y lady walks her morning round, 
My lady's page her fleet grey- 
hound, 

My lady's hair the fond winds stir, 
And all the birds make songs for her. 

Her thrushes sing in Rathburn bowers, 
And Rathburn side is gay with flowers ; 
But ne'er like hers, in flower or bird, 
Was beauty seen or music heard. 

The distance of the stars is hers ; 
The least of all her worshippers, 
The dust beneath her dainty heel, 
She knows not that I see or feel. 



Oh, proud and calm ! — she cannot know 
Where'er she goes with her I go ; 



The Henchman iSj 

Oh, cold and fair ! — she cannot guess 
I kneel to share her hound's caress ! 

Gay knights beside her hunt and hawk, 
I rob their ears of her sweet talk ; 
Her suitors come from east and west, 
I steal her smiles from every guest. 

Unheard of her, in loving words, 

I greet her with the song of birds ; 

I reach her with her green-armed bowers, 

I kiss her with the lips of flowers. 

The hound and I are on her trail, 
The wind and I uplift her veil ; 
As if the calm, cold moon she w T ere, 
And I the tide, I follow her. 

As unrebuked as they, I share 
The license of the sun and air, 
And in a common homage hide 
My worship from her scorn and pride. 

World-wide apart, and yet so near, 
I breathe her charmed atmosphere, 
Wherein to her my service brings 
The reverence due to holy things. 



1 84 The Bay of Seven Islands 

Her maiden pride, her haughty name, 
My dumb devotion shall not shame ; 
The love that no return doth crave 
To knightly levels lifts the slave. 

No lance have I, in joust or fight, 
To splinter in my lady's sight ; 
But, at her feet, how blest were I 
For any need of hers to die ! 




THE BAY OF SEVEN ISLANDS. 

ROM the green Amesbury hill 
which bears the name 
Of that half mythic ancestor of 
mine 
Who trod its slopes two hundred years 

ago, 
Down the long valley of the Merrimac, 
Midway between me and the river's mouth, 
I see thy home, set like an eagle's nest 
Among Deer Island's immemorial pines, 
Crowning the crag on which the sunset 
breaks 



The Bay of Seven Islands 185 

Its last red arrow. Many a tale and song, 
Which thou hast told or sung, I call to 

mind, 
Softening with silvery mist the woods and 

hills, 
The out-thrust headlands and inreaching 

bays 
Of our northeastern coast-line, trending 

where 
The Gulf, midsummer, feels the chill 

blockade 
Of icebergs stranded at its northern gate. 

To thee the echoes of the Island Sound 
Answer not vainly, nor in vain the moan 
Of the South Breaker prophesying storm. 
And thou hast listened, like myself, to 

men 
Sea-periled oft where Anticosti lies 
Like a fell spider in its web of fog, 
Or where the Grand Bank shallows with 

the wrecks 
Of sunken fishers, and to whom strange 

isles 
And frost-rimmed bays and trading sta- 
tions seem 
Familiar as Great Neck and Kettle Cove, 



j 86 The Bay of Seven Islands 

Nubble and Boon, the common names of 

home. 
So let me offer thee this lay of mine, 
Simple and homely, lacking much thy play 
Of color and of fancy. If its theme 
And treatment seem to thee befitting 

youth 
Rather than age, let this be my excuse : 
It has beguiled some heavy hours and 

called 
Some pleasant memories up ; and, better 

still, 
Occasion lent me for a kindly word 
To one who is my neighbor and my friend. 



The skipper sailed out of the harbor 
mouth, 

Leaving the apple-bloom of the South 
For the ice of the Eastern seas, 
In his fishing schooner Breeze. 

Handsome and brave and young was he, 
And the maids of Newbury sighed to see 

His lessening white sail fall 

Under the sea's blue wall. 



The Bay of Seven Islands i8j 

Through the Northern Gulf and the misty 

screen 
Of the isles of Mingan and Madeleine, 

St. Paul's and Blanc Sablon, 

The little Breeze sailed on, 

Backward and forward, along the shore 
Of lorn and desolate Labrador, 

And found at last her way 

To the Seven Islands Bay. 

The little hamlet, nestling below 
Great hills white with lingering snow, 
With its tin-roofed chapel stood 
Half hid in the dwarf spruce wood ; 

Green-turfed, flower-so wn, the last outpost 
Of summer upon the dreary coast, 

With its gardens small and spare, 

Sad in the frosty air. 

Hard by where the skipper's schooner lay, 
A fisherman's cottage looked away 
Over isle and bay, and behind 
On mountains dim-defined. 

And there twin sisters, fair and young, 
Laughed with their stranger guest, and sung 



1 88 The Bay of Seven Islands 

In their native tongue the lays 
Of the old Provencal days. 

Alike were they, save the faint outline 
Of a scar on Suzette's forehead fine ; 
And both, it so befell, 
Loved the heretic stranger well. 

Both were pleasant to look upon, 

But the heart of the skipper clave to one ; 

Though less by his eye than heart 

He knew the twain apart. 

Despite of alien race and creed, 
Well did his wooing of Marguerite speed ; 
And the mother's wrath was vain 
As the sister's jealous pain. 

The shrill-tongued mistress her house for- 
bade, 
And solemn warning was sternly said 

By the black-robed priest, whose word 

As law the hamlet heard. 

But half by voice and half by signs 
The skipper said, " A warm sun shines 

On the green-banked Merrimac ; 

Wait, watch, till I come back. 



The Bay of Seven Islands i8g 

" And when you see, from my mast head. 
The signal fly of a kerchief red, 

My boat on the shore shall wait ; 

Come, when the night is late." 

Ah ! weighed with childhood's haunts and 
friends, 

And all that the home sky overbends, 
Did ever young love fail 
To turn the trembling scale ? 

Under the night, on the wet sea sands, 
Slowly unclasped their plighted hands : 
One to the cottage hearth. 
And one to his sailor's berth. 

What was it the parting lovers heard ? 

Nor leaf, nor ripple, nor wing of bird, 
But a listener's stealthy tread 
On the rock-moss, crisp and dead. 

He weighed his anchor, and fished once 

more 
By the black coast-line of Labrador ; 

And by love and the north wind 

driven, 
Sailed back to the Islands Seven. 



190 The Bay of Seven Islands 

In the sunset's glow the sisters twain 
Saw the Breeze come sailing in again ; 

Said Suzette, " Mother dear, 

The heretic's sail is here." 

" Go, Marguerite, to your room, and hide ; 
Your door shall be bolted !" the mother 
cried : 

While Suzette, ill at ease, 

Watched the red sign of the Breeze. 

At midnight, down to the waiting skiff 
She stole in the shadow of the cliff ; 
And out of the Bay's mouth ran 
The schooner with maid and man. 

And all night long, on a restless bed, 
Her prayers to the Virgin Marguerite said : 

And thought of her lover's pain 

Waiting for her in vain. 

Did he pace the sands ? Did he pause to 
hear 

The sound of her light step drawing near ? 
And, as the slow hours passed, 
Would he doubt her faith at last ? 



The Bay of Seven Islands igi 

But when she saw through the misty 
pane 

The morning break on a sea of rain, 
Could even her love avail 
To follow his vanished sail ? 

Meantime the Breeze, with favoring wind, 
Left the rugged Moisic hills behind, 

And heard from an unseen shore 

The falls of Manitou roar. 

On the morrow's morn, in the thick, gray 

weather 
They sat on the reeling deck together, 

Lover and counterfeit 

Of hapless Marguerite. 

With a lover's hand, from her forehead 

fair 
He smoothed away her jet-black hair. 

What was it his fond eyes met ? 

The scar of the false Suzette ! 

Fiercely he shouted : " Bear away 
East by north for Seven Isles Bay ! " 
The maiden wept and prayed, 
But the ship her helm obeyed. 



/ 92 The Bay of Seven Islands 

Once more the Bay of the Isles they 
found : 

They heard the bell of the chapel sound, 
And the chant of the dying sung 
In the harsh, wild Indian tongue. 

A feeling of mystery, change, and awe 
Was in all they heard and all they saw : 
Spell-bound the hamlet lay 
In the hush of its lonely bay. 

And when they came to the cottage door, 
The mother rose up from her weeping 
sore, 
And with angry gestures met 
The scared look of Suzette. 

"Here is your daughter," the skipper 

said ; 
" Give me the one I love instead." 

But the woman sternly spake ; 

" Go, see if the dead will wake ! " 

He looked. Her sweet face still and 

white 
And strange in the noonday taper light, 

She lay on her little bed, 

With the cross at her feet and head. 



The Bay of Seven Islands 193 

In a passion of grief the strong man 

bent 
Down to her face, and, kissing it, went 

Back to the waiting Breeze, 

Back to the mournful seas. 

Never asrain to the Merrimac 

And Newbury's homes that bark came 
back. 
Whether her fate she met 
On the shores of Carraquette, 

MiscoUj or Tracadie, who can say ? 
But even yet at Seven Isles Bay 

Is told the ghostly tale 

Of a w r eird, unspoken sail, 

In the pale, sad light of the Northern day 
Seen by the blanketed Montagnais, 
Or squaw, in her small kyack, 
Crossing the spectre's track. 

On the deck a maiden wrings her hands ; 

Her likeness kneels on the gray coast 
sands ; 
One in her wild despair, 
And one in the trance of prayer. 



1 94 Ichabod 

She flits before no earthly blast, 
The red sign fluttering from her mast, 

Over the solemn seas, 

The ghost of the schooner Breeze ! 



ICHABOD. 



i8;o. 




O fallen ! so lost ! the light with- 
drawn 
Which once he wore ! 
The glory from his gray hairs gone 
Forevermore ! 

Revile him not, the Tempter hath 

A snare for all ; 
And pitying tears, not scorn and wrath, 

Befit his fall ! 

Oh, dumb be passion's stormy rage, 

When he who might 
Have lighted up and led his age 

Falls back in night. 



Icbabod 195 

Scorn ! would the angels laugh, to mark 

A bright soul driven, 
Fiend-goaded, down the endless dark, 

From hope and heaven ! 

Let not the land once proud of him 

Insult him now, 
Nor brand with deeper shame his dim, 

Dishonored brow. 

But let its humbled sons, instead, 

From sea to lake, 
A long lament, as for the dead, 

In sadness make. 

Of all we loved and honored, naught 

Save power remains ; 
A fallen angel's pride of thought, 

Still strong in chains. 

All else is gone ; from those great eyes 

The soul has fled : 
When faith is lost, when honor dies 

The man is dead ! 

Then, pay the reverence of old days 
To his dead fame ; 



ip6 The Lost Occasion 

Walk backward, with averted gaze, 
And hide his shame ! 




THE LOST OCCASION. 

1880. 

OME die too late and some too 
soon, 
At early morning, heat of noon, 
Or the chill evening twilight. Thou, 
Whom the rich heavens did so endow 
With eyes of power and Jove's own brow, 
With all the massive strength that fills 
Thy home-horizon's granite hills, 
With rarest gifts of heart and head 
From manliest stock inherited, 
New England's stateliest type of man, 
In port and speech Olympian ; 
Whom no one met, at first, but took 
A second awed and wondering look 
(As turned, perchance, the eyes of Greece 
On Phidias' unveiled masterpiece) ; 
Whose words, in simplest homespun clad, 



The Lost Occasion igy 

The Saxon strength of Caedmon's had, 
With power reserved at need to reach 
The Roman forum's loftiest speech, 
Sweet with persuasion, eloquent 
In passion, cool in argument, 
Or, ponderous, falling on thy foes 
As fell the Norse god's hammer blows, 
Crushing as with Talus' flail 
Through Error's logic-woven mail, 
And failing only when they tried 
The adamant of the righteous side, — 
Thou, foiled in aim and hope, bereaved 
Of old friends, by the new deceived, 
Too soon for us, too soon for thee, 
Beside thy lonely Northern sea, 
Where long and low the marsh-lands 

spread, 
Laid wearily down thy august head. 

Thou shouldst have lived to feel below 
Thy feet Disunion's fierce upthrow ; 
The late-sprung mine that underlaid 
Thy sad concessions vainly made. 
Thou shouldst have seen from Sumter's 

wall 
The star-flag of the Union fall 
And armed rebellion pressing on 



ig8 The Lost Occasion 

The broken lines of Washington ! 

No stronger voice than thine had then 

Called out the utmost might of men. 

To make the Union's charter free 

And strengthen law by liberty. 

How had that stern arbitrament 

To thy gray age youth's vigor lent, 

Shaming ambition's paltry prize 

Before thy disillusioned eyes ; 

Breaking the spell about thee wound 

Like the green withes that Samson bound ; 

Redeeming, in one effort grand, 

Thyself and thy imperilled land ! 

Ah, cruel fate, that closed to thee, 

O sleeper by the Northern sea, 

The gates of opportunity ! 

God fills the gaps of human need, 

Each crisis brings its word and deed. 

Wise men and strong we did not lack ; 

But still, with memory turning back, 

In the dark hours we thought of thee, 

And thy lone grave beside the sea. 

Above that grave the east winds blow, 
And from the marsh-lands drifting slow 
The sea-fog comes, with evermore 
The wave-wash of a lonely shore, 



Tloe Lost Occasion 199 

And sea-bird's melancholy cry, 

As Nature fain would typify 

The sadness of a closing scene, 

The loss of that which should have been. 

But where thy native mountains bare 

Their foreheads to diviner air, 

Fit emblem of enduring fame, 

One lofty summit keeps thy name. 

For thee, the cosmic forces did 

The rearing of that pyramid, 

The prescient ages shaping with 

Fire, flood, and frost thy monolith. 

Sunrise and sunset lay thereon 

With hands of light their benison, 

The stars of midnight pause to set 

Their jewels in its coronet. 

And evermore that mountain mass 

Seems climbing from the shadowy pass 

To light, as if to manifest 

Thy nobler self, thy life at best 1 




200 Storm on Lake Asquam 



STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM. 

CLOUD, like that the old-time 
Hebrew saw 
On Carmel prophesying rain, 
began 
To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan, 
Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a 
flaw 

Of chill wind menaced ; then a strong 
blast beat 
Down the long valley's murmuring pines, 

and woke 
The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, 
and broke 
Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains' 
feet. 

Thunderous and vast, a fire-veined dark- 
ness swept 
Over the rough pine-bearded Asquam 

range ; 
A wraith of tempest, wonderful and 
strange, 
From peak to peak the cloudy giant 
stepped. 



Storm on Lake Asquam 201 

One moment, as if challenging the storm, 
Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel 
Looked from his watch-tower ; then the 
shadow fell, 
And the wild rain-drift blotted out his 
form. 

And over all the still unhidden sun, 

Weaving its light through slant-blown 

veils of rain, 
Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles 
on pain ; 
And, when the tumult and the strife were 
done, 

With one foot on the lake and one on 
land, 
Framing within his crescent's tinted 

streak 
A far-off picture of the Melvin peak, 
Spent broken clouds the rainbow's angel 
spanned. 



202 



Birchbrook Mill 



BIRCHBROOK MILL. 

NOTELESS stream, the Birch- 
brook runs 
Beneath its leaning trees ; 
That low, soft ripple is its own, 
That dull roar is the sea's. 




Of human signs it sees alone 
The distant church spire's tip, 

And, ghost-like, on a blank of gray, 
The white sail of a ship. 

No more a toiler at the wheel, 

It wanders at its will ; 
Nor dam nor pond is left to tell 

Where once was Birchbrook mill. 

The timbers of that mill have fed 

Long since a farmer's fires ; 
His doorsteps are the stones that ground 

The harvest of his sires. 



Man trespassed here ; but Nature lost 

No right of her domain ; 
She waited, and she brought the old 

Wild beauty back again. 



Birchbrook Mill 203 

By day the sunlight through the leaves 

Falls on its moist, green sod, 
And wakes the violet bloom of spring 

And autumn's golden-rod. 

Its birches whisper to the wind, 

The swallow dips her wings 
In the cool spray, and on its banks 

The gray song-sparrow sings. 

But from it, when the dark night falls, 
The school-girl shrinks with dread ; 

The farmer, home-bound from his fields, 
Goes by with quickened tread. 

They dare not pause to hear the grind 

Of shadowy stone on stone ; 
The plashing of a water-wheel 

Where wheel there now is none. 

Has not a cry of pain been heard 

Above the clattering mill? 
The pawing of an unseen horse, 

Who waits his mistress still ? 

Yet never to the listener's eye 
Has sight confirmed the sound ; 



204 Bircbbrook Mill 

A wavering birch line marks alone 
The vacant pasture ground. 

No ghostly arms fling up to heaven 

The agony of prayer ; 
No spectral steed impatient shakes 

His white mane on the air. 

The meaning of that common dread 
No tongue has fitly told ; 

The secret of the dark surmise 
The brook and birches hold. 

What nameless horror of the past 
Broods here forevermore ? 

What ghost his unforgiven sin 
Is grinding o'er and o'er? 

Does, then, immortal memory play 

The actor's tragic part. 
Rehearsals of a mortal life 

And unveiled human heart ? 

God's pity spare a guilty soul 

That drama of its ill, 
And let the scenic curtain fall 

On Birchbrook's haunted mill ! 




The Bartholdi Statue 205 



THE BARTHOLDI STATUE. 

HE land, that, from the rule of 
kings, 
In freeing us, itself made free, 
Our Old World Sister, to us brings 
Her sculptured Dream of Liberty : 

Unlike the shapes on Egypt's sands, 
Uplifted by the toil-worn slave, 

On Freedom's soil with freemen's hands 
We rear the symbol free hands gave. 

O France, the beautiful ! to thee 
Once more a debt of love we owe : 

In peace beneath thy Colors Three, 
We hail a later Rochambeau ! 

Rise, stately Symbol ! holding forth 
Thy light and hope to all who sit 

In chains and darkness ! Belt the earth 
With watch-fires from thy torch uplit ! 

Reveal the primal mandate still 

Which Chaos heard and ceased to be, 



206 At Last 

Trace on mid-air th' Eternal Will 

In signs of fire : " Let man be free ! " 

Shine far, shine free, a guiding light 
To Reason's ways and Virtue's aim, 

A lightning-flash the wretch to smite 
Who shields his license with thy name ! 




AT LAST. 

HEN on my day of life the night 
is falling, 
And, in the winds from un- 
sunned spaces blown, 
I hear far voices out of darkness calling 
My feet to paths unknown, 

Thou who hast made my home of life so 
pleasant, 
Leave not its tenant when its walls de- 
cay; 
O Love Divine, O Helper ever present, 
Be Thou my strength and stay J 



At Last 20J 

Be near me when all else is from me drift- 
ing: 

Earth, sky, home's pictures, days of 
shade and shine, 
And kindly faces to my own uplifting 
The love which answers mine. 

I have but Thee, my Father! let Thy 
spirit 

Be with me then to comfort and uphold ; 
No gate of pearl, no branch of palm I merit,' 

Nor street of shining gold. 

Suffice it if — my good and ill unreck- 
oned, 
And both forgiven through Thy abound- 
ing grace — 
I find myself by hands familiar beckoned 
Unto my fitting place. 

Some humble door among Thy many 
mansions, 
Some sheltering shade where sin and 
striving cease, 
And flows forever through heaven's green 
expansions 
The river of Thy peace. 



I 2o8 At Last 



There, from the music round about me 
stealing, 
I fain would learn the new and holy 
song, 
And find at last, beneath Thy trees of 
healing, 
The life for which I long. 



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